Fauve Doucet would much rather be called “media strategist” than “media buyer.” The former is a more accurate description of what she does for brands and their campaigns every day, she says. Media buyer is about a time when creative agencies came up with ideas and media agencies bought commercial inventory.
“I feel that nowadays, our role is so much more than media buying,” says Doucet, associate director of strategy for OMD Montreal. This perspective, and the tenacity with which she approaches her work, is apparent in the efforts Doucet has made to expand her own knowledge of new media and what it can do for brands. It’s also evident in the role she plays in generating impressive business results for her clients and the agency.
In one campaign for Tourisme Montréal, a social media strategy from Touché (overseen by Doucet) boosted photo sharing using #MtlMoments by 2700% in the city during the summer of 2013. Doucet’s work has also been a boon to OMD’s business. While she was recently named associate director of strategy, in her previous role as digital media supervisor her team doubled digital media revenue for the shop.
At OMD she has implemented a process that has media strategists working with creative agencies at a much earlier stage in the campaign building process than before, leading to highly successful campaigns in which creative assets are enhanced by their media placement, to great effect. Doucet, 26, has also taken a holistic approach to the digital media landscape, acquiring skills that aren’t traditionally part of a media strategist’s toolkit, and applying them to client campaigns.
For example, she’s taken it upon herself to learn and apply lessons from training in user experience design (UX). The reasoning, she says, is simple — if brands are going to increase their digital advertising spend and the number of ad-avoiders continues to grow, “the user needs to have a great experience when getting connected through the brand.” The user experience online, from ads to photos of products on a retailer’s website, should create a seamless path to purchase.
A positive user experience took OMD’s work for Reitmans’ Addition Elle banner to the next level. In 2013, Doucet led an online project for the launch of Addition Elle’s new lingerie line with plus-size model Ashley Graham. Rather than a traditional targeted media buy, OMD wanted to created a special experience for women looking to buy their lingerie at Addition Elle.
There were two important insights to consider — one, that buying lingerie often occurs when women are early in a relationship (or looking “to seduce”), and two, the best ambassadors for the Addition Elle brand would be women who weren’t shy about their size. To get in touch with these women, OMD contacted Canadian dating websites and established an industry first — the ability to create an online dating profile in which women could identify themselves by body type. Women who were both visitors of Addition Elle’s website and had identified themselves as “full-figured” on these dating sites were tracked with a cookie, and served ads for the Ashley Graham line on Facebook. The campaign reached nearly 3 million consumers and increased ROI for Reitmans by 293%.
“A lot of things that we try to do here, and [Fauve] is one of the catalysts for that, is to place media in a broader marketing picture,” says Nicolas Marin, general manager of OMD Montreal.
“When she gets into something… she keeps on pushing, and if she has an idea, she does everything she needs to to make it happen… Whatever you give her, she takes it and she wants to push it further.”
In the case of Addition Elle, Doucet’s efforts pushed the campaign to the top, as it took home Best of Show at the 2014 Prix Média Infopresse awards gala, and gold at Marketing‘s 2014 Media Innovation Awards.
“Creative agencies love her, clients [too] – even if she’s young, clients feel the drive,” says Marin.
“She makes special things happen.”
