CBC/Radio-Canada has formed a joint English-French digital sales team.
The initiative will provide integrated digital sales opportunities across both language groups for the national broadcaster’s agency partners west of Quebec. Clients will now have one digital media point of contact for both languages.
The newly joined sales team is led by Michka Mancini, director of sales for digital media. “We were hearing [from clients] that they’re already dealing with so many buyers—just on the English side of the business there’s over 7,000 Canadian sites that are listed in comScore—so the demand was ‘We want a single point of contact,’” Mancini told Marketing.
Sean Perkins, digital strategy supervisor at OMD, said he’s a fan of the single-point-of-contact approach. He noted many other suppliers and agencies have taken this path and that “reducing the number of touch points required to get the information you need ultimately allows you to be more productive with your time, as well as more reactive to events as they arise.”
Media agencies should appreciate the efficiency of the new model, Perkins said, “so long as that point of contact is well versed in the nuances of both the English and French Canadian marketplaces.”
Mancini said the new structure will also provide a more consistent product offering across both languages in the areas of display, mobile, branded entertainment, sponsorships and social.
“The CBC and Radio-Canada commission and build the majority of the programming that we produce across a variety of screens, so [the new structure] puts us in a position to more effectively bring more customized opportunities to our clients and scale it across both English and French now,” said Mancini.
These changes mostly affect the broadcaster’s 15-person sales force in Toronto and Vancouver, which is expected to grow slightly to accommodate the new system. The digital solutions and sales support teams are expected to grown by two or three staff over the next month.
Mancini said it’s taken more than a year to develop the structure to best optimize how the team services its clients.
Commenting on the new initiative in a release, Alan Dark, executive director for CBC’s revenue group, said the changes show the company’s commitment to investing in digital media.
