Last October when Cossette CEO Melanie Dunn began her search for someone to oversee the agency’s English operations, she said she wasn’t going to rush things.
“Most important for me is to find the exact right leader for us,” she said at the time.
The exact right leader, it turns out, is Daniel Shearer.
The former general manager of Taxi 2 was named executive vice-president and general manager on Wednesday. He fills a role left vacant with the departure of Dave Lafond. Shearer will run the Toronto office with responsibility for Cossette’s operations in Western Canada, while Cossette Quebec and East is overseen by executive vice-president and general manager Louis Duchesne.
“Daniel has a great reputation for being a natural leader,” said Dunn. But, he also represents what she called “a new generation of agency leadership.”
“It is that shift we are seeing in the industry where agencies are not just communications partners, we are really becoming business partners,” she said. That requires leaders who are passionate about going beyond advertising to solve business problems through technology, innovation and R&D. “Daniel is really about that… he has that spirit and that fire,” she said.
“The age of the ‘ad agency’ is over, because clients need so much more depth,” added Shearer. That depth—be it media, CRM, PR, or technology—all exists under one roof at Cossette and that is very appealing to clients and very powerful for the agency, he said.
“They just have an amazing mix of people across an integrated offering,” said Shearer.
“It’s going to be amazing to have a media thought and walk 12 feet to talk to someone who works in media in the same organization, to do the right thing for our client… The impact is truly amazing.”
Shearer said he was also drawn to Cossette because, even from the outside looking in, he could see momentum building within the agency in the past little while. “I felt like something was going on at Cossette,” he said. There’s been great hires, great work and clients are taking note, he said.
He pointed to Cossette recently being named L’Oréal’s digital agency of record as proof the agency is willing to do things differently with clients to build their brands. The deal includes an incentive-based evaluation and remuneration system linked to performance of the brand.
Shearer spent the last 11 years at Taxi working on a wide range of brands including Telus, Koodo, Cadbury, Yellow Pages, Boston Pizza and Leon’s. He was also managing director on Taxi’s North American Kraft business.
