With an eye to targeting premium online shoppers, two seasoned media executives have founded a media company in Toronto.
Cathy Fernandes and Erin McDougald have started Jones Media to help national advertisers get their messages to a targeted set of influential online shoppers.
Co-founding partner Fernandes (pictured, left) said the company is concentrated on helping advertisers have better dialogue with their customers. “With our Canadian retail partners, we aim to be leaders in the shopper data arena with superior analytic profiling and segmentation,” said Fernandes.
Jones Media aims to help national advertisers track and target shoppers at various retail touch points using a variety of strategies, from sampling to traditional online advertisements to using first-party online shopper data gathered through a secured system it has created.
The company is collaborating with technology partners such as Datacratic on its predictive algorithms and AdGear as Jones Media’s DSP provider.
To enable agencies and advertisers to add second-party shopper data to their real-time bidding media buys, Jones Media will produce a Canadian shopper audience data management platform (DMP).
“We’re creating a data co-op with our retail partners,” Fernandes told Marketing. While agencies are now using their clients’ first-party data and then trying to search for them on the RTB exchanges, Fernandes said the DMPs Jones Media offers are Canadian second-party data.
Fernandes said as she and McDougald formed the company, they spent several months exploring Canada’s RTB ecosystem to see where the gaps existed. The largest opportunity they found—and look to fill—is around Canadian shopper data. People may enter the purchase funnel by reading contextual content on publisher sites, but as they move further into the funnel they become even more valuable to advertisers, said Fernandes. She said Jones Media is focusing on the part of the funnel from consideration, along intent and down to purchase and retention. “That’s why we’ve targeted retailers and are also creating inventory that hasn’t been utilized in this marketplace.”
Jones Media’s first partner is private online shopping club Beyond the Rack, which sells designer brand goods at highly discounted prices during limited-time, limited-quantity events. The Canadian e-tailer currently has 3.5 million members in Canada (85% of which are women).
Since members have opted into receiving twice-daily emails, they engage with the site quite frequently, said Fernandes. “It’s exciting because you’re talking to 3.5 million members who have opted in that aren’t just perusing and fell upon another blog and reading; they’re actually interacting, engaging and then purchasing,” she said.
Prior to co-creating Jones Media, Fernandes was most recently president and COO of Zoom Media. Previous to that, she was vice-president of national sales and Toronto GM of BV! Media, which was subsequently acquired by Rogers Media. Fernandes has also held senior sales roles at Quebecor Media and Rogers Media.
McDougald launched her sales career at Rogers Media, and also did stints at Quebecor Media and BV! Media. She made the move to Rogers when BV! was acquired by the company, and later went to Zoom Media, where she assembled a sales team for English Canada.
Fernandes said she and McDougald met during their time at Rogers (specifically at Marketing magazine). “We’re like yin and yang. It’s industry marriage; when you find a partner that you get and you complement each other, then why move on?” she said. “It’s always worked and we enjoy working together.”
