You might have caught John Fanous on CTV or in the Financial Post, talking about digital and mobile innovations in shopper marketing. At just 28, he’s one of Canada’s most eminent authorities on the subject (which, to be fair, hasn’t existed for very long).
As vice-president at Mediative (the digital marketing subsidiary of Yellow Pages Group), Fanous has dual responsibilities — he leads the company’s central region sales team, and he directs all innovation in shopper marketing. He’s held the position since 2012, only a year after he joined Mediative, and just four years after he graduated from Western with a Political Science and English bachelor’s degree.
Mediative CRO Chris Law says that when he hired Fanous in 2011 as a sales rep, his skills were so obvious that other executives found them hard to believe. “Believe it or not, this guy’s the real deal,” Law recalls telling them. “Nothing can phase him, he just sticks to what he’s trying to accomplish.”
Fanous says that one of the biggest challenges throughout his career has been leading teams made up of older and more experienced professionals. When he was first put in charge of a sales team at YPG, he realized that he’d be leading people who’d been in marketing since before he’d started school. It was his first time trying to evangelize a room full of digital skeptics.
“That episode taught me [to] always respect your audience,” he says. “Even if you can appreciate that their level of knowledge on the topic aren’t at the same level as your own, don’t diminish the fact that they have potentially years and years of experience — with local advertisers, with consumers or just life experience that does bring real value to the table.”
Fanous developed his approach to shopper marketing through working on custom e-commerce and in-store marketing solutions for brands like Walmart, Best Buy and Toys R Us. He says technology has changed the way retailers reach consumers, by helping them start the conversation right when shoppers are ready to buy. Average consumers hate to be advertised to, he says — except when they’re in a store or on-site. That’s when brands messages are most relevant to them, and most likely to get past their filters.
Although he acknowledges it’s become cliche to say that technology is disrupting marketing, Fanous believes shopper marketing really do have a unique opportunity.
“We’re at a really interesting moment right now where technology has actually caught up to people’s imagination,” he says. “Whether it’s location-based consumer interactions, whether it’s customizing creative online based on shoppers’ actual intent, whether it’s developing a program that taps into what consumers want to see advertised—it’s a really cool moment.”
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