Kelly Clark
GroupM has made a senior executive appointment in Quebec that North American CEO Kelly Clark says is part of a “very deliberate plan” to bolster the company’s presence in the market.
Earlier this month, the agency announced the appointment of Axel Dumont, former managing director, global client leader for MEC Paris, as president of GroupM Quebec. It is a newly created role Clark says is aimed at strengthening GroupM’s presence in a key market that is a “huge focus” for national advertisers.
Dumont’s hire is the result of a search that spanned both Canada and GroupM’s international network. Clark says Dumont possesses the “right mix” of skills and experience for the role.
Dumont, who also spent more than four years in a managing partner role with MEC in New York, will oversee GroupM’s Mindshare, MEC, MediaCom and Maxus networks in the province, as well as its programmatic buying platform Xaxis and its search and social agency Catalyst.
Clark says the CEOs of GroupM’s four networks – as well as its programmatic and search companies – jointly decided about a year ago to significantly “ramp up” the company’s Quebec operation.
“We thought there was an opportunity to do two things: Improve our competitiveness for clients based in Montreal [and] other parts of Quebec, but also improve the depth of our insight and relationships with key media vendors and partners in French Canada,” Clark tells Marketing.
He says the objective is to grow GroupM’s Quebec business “dramatically” – by at least 50% – in the next three years, through a combination of new business and expanded assignments with existing clients.
Clark says Dumont’s hire will be followed by additional investments in talent and resources.
GroupM controls an estimated 27% of Canada’s billings – $2.09 billion – according to the most recent data from Paris-based research firm RECMA, just ahead of Omnicom (24%) and Publicis (17%).
Omnicom’s OMD is the largest network in the country with 2014 billings of $1.07 billion – representing approximately 12.4% of the market – followed by GroupM’s Mindshare with billings of $875 million (10.1%) and Dentsu Aegis’ Carat at $835 million (9.7%).
Leveraging GroupM’s considerable clout in negotiations with media vendors will be one of the duties of another of the agency’s new hires, Neil Johnston. He joined GroupM as chief trading officer. Johnston is a media-trading veteran who has spent the past three years as head of trading for GroupM Ireland, and also held various trading leadership roles for Omnicom’s OMD network in the U.K.
“He’s an incredibly experienced and talented trading leader, which will help our clients navigate the media buying marketplace in Canada,” says Clark. “It’s a little bit of muscle, but a lot of brain as well.”
Clark says it is strictly coincidence that both executives are joining the Canadian operation from Europe. “We just happened to find two candidates who we felt were the best,” he says. “In Axel and Neil we’ve got two people who are going to help our companies grow.”
This year has seen an unprecedented number of major media reviews Clark says are being driven by a combination of two key factors: “Opportunistic” procurement activity, where clients facing growth and cost-control pressures create competitive bidding situations in an attempt to drive down media costs, and a “bigger issue” of clients looking to ensure they have the right agency partner to navigate an increasingly tricky media landscape.
“I think clients are asking really important questions about what the future of the marketing and media landscape looks like, how do they as an organization restructure themselves to be successful and have they got the right agency partners to help them in that changing landscape?”
Clark says he is “very confident” in GroupM’s Canadian business, noting the four major networks are growing, its search agency Catalyst is the country’s largest and its programmatic platform is growing quickly.
