Rosanne Caron recently attended a friend’s wedding in picturesque Byron Bay, Australia. It was a hectic two weeks, spent catching up with old friends and seeing the sights.
Yet Caron somehow still managed to squeeze in a series of meetings, not to mention a quick – and unplanned – presentation to the Outdoor Media Association of Australia.
“It wasn’t like it was a presentation to a client or an agency,” says the president of the Out-of-Home Marketing Association of Canada (OMAC) and the Canadian Out-of-Home Measurement Bureau. “And how can you go all that way and not tie in the business aspect?”
Besides, she adds, it’s not like this kind of thing happens all the time. “If I’m in the Caribbean, there’s not generally someone I can present to,” she says.
Caron’s tireless dedication to promoting the out-of-home advertising industry is a key reason why she is the next recipient of the Advertising Club of Toronto’s merit award. She will be honoured at the organization’s rock-and-roll themed “OOH Showdown” on Oct. 20.
The award will honour Caron’s contributions to the industry, amassed over more than a decade as OMAC president and, since 2015, COMB.
Reached in her office at OMAC/COMB’s Toronto headquarters the day the award is announced, Caron is initially a reluctant interview subject, slowly warming over the course of a nearly 40-minute conversation that takes in her one-time ambition to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a music teacher, and her brief stint as a pastry chef at Toronto’s Sheraton Hotel.
“As my mom always said, I’m not very good at accepting compliments,” she tells Marketing early in the conversation. “I kind of shy away from tooting my own horn.
“I’m honoured,” she continues, “but there are lots of people who are as passionate about the industry as I am, and who work really hard. Sure it recognizes what I’ve been doing, but in a way it’s more of a team effort.”
Caron leads a small nine-person team at OMAC and COMB, and is recognized as a tireless supporter of the out-of-home industry. It’s where she began her advertising career, in the accounting department of Mediacom Canada (now Outfront Media), though she absolutely refuses to say how long ago.
“I don’t like talking about how old I am,” she jokes. “I don’t like to date myself, because then people think ‘Oh my God, what are we doing hanging onto her?’”
It could be because she is ably presiding over an industry association dedicated to the oldest advertising medium, which continues to post year-over-year revenue increases while other forms of traditional media are struggling to navigate the new digital landscape.
Caron says she fell into advertising – only to discover she had no desire to leave. “It’s one of those things that draws you in, and if you have that connection to the industry and the business, it just stays with you,” she says. “I can’t imagine not being in the business.”
At Mediacom, she worked her way up to vice-president, marketing and research. Her painstakingly assembled research into “What works in OOH” was published in The Journal of Advertising Research, and Caron suddenly found herself in demand on the conference circuit, making presentations in the U.S., the U.K. and Australia (presumably, she was invited that time).
Following stints with the former Newspaper Audience Databank (NADBank), Quebecor and the former Canwest – where she was tapped to oversee integrated sales in the now-quaint “convergence” era – Caron returned to an evolving out-of-home industry in 2005.
In its former incarnation as the Outdoor Advertising Association, OMAC served primarily as a lobby group for the industry. At the time, it was being re-launched with an increased emphasis on sales and marketing.
“I met with them and said ‘I’d love the job – it’s perfect for me,’” says Caron. “Working with members to advance the industry, doing presentations and research – it encompasses all of the stuff I like doing.”
Caron has been a passionate and tireless advocate for the out-of-home industry over the past decade, helping steer it through a tumultuous period that at one point included daily attacks from the advocacy group IllegalSigns.ca, and a billboard tax – and ultimately futile legal battle to have it repealed – that some felt would cripple the industry.
“Rosanne’s contribution to the advertising industry is significant and particularly from our perspective on the out-of-home side,” says Michele Erskine, senior vice-president, Outfront Media Canada. First in her role at Mediacom where she pioneered pivotal research about Outdoor Ad Recall that is still in use today and of late in her role representing the industry at OMAC and now OMAC/COMB where she manages to steer us through an exciting yet challenging time for out-of-home. She is a great ambassador for our industry.”
For Caron, her role is all about collaboration. “We take a lot of time to listen to what our stakeholders are saying,” she says. “Not just the operators, but the agencies and advertisers. Getting their perspective on the industry and what are the kinds of things we need to address.”
“Rosanne’s professionalism and expertise is matched only by her commitment to promoting and growing out-of-home advertising,” says Jordana Fatsis, vice-president of sales at Astral Out of Home. “Canadian OOH companies are fortunate to have her act as a conveyor belt between the industry and agencies and consumers.”
It’s not always as harmonious as Caron’s time at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, where she spent time studying voice and piano. Somewhere along the way, however, she decided to be a chef. After studying at Toronto’s George Brown College, she wound up as a pastry chef at the Sheraton Centre Hotel across the street from Toronto City Hall – the same place she would one day serve as an advocate for the out-of-home industry.
Her days in the kitchen were short-lived, however. “I quickly realized I didn’t want to work every Christmas and holiday and not be with my family,” says Caron. “And working in a large hotel, it was more like an assembly line: You’re making 500 Black Forest Cakes, and I found it a little tedious.”
You might say Caron’s subsequent decision to leave the kitchen behind turned out to be the icing on the cake.
