The media industry no longer has to wonder where Lauren has landed.
Lauren Richards has launched her own communications consultancy – Pollin8.
More than a year after leaving her last agency role as CEO of Media Experts, Richards said she believes Pollin8 can help fill gaps in the marketplace, pointing to media agency search selection in particular.
“From my experience, U.S.-based companies typically provide this service for Canadian-based marketers without sufficient knowledge of the Canadian media landscape or the specific strengths and skill sets of Canadian media agencies,” said Richards, who is also the former CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group and SVP, national media at Cossette Media.
Richards will work with clients, media sellers and creative agencies in navigating “the constant flux of communication channels.”
Pollin8 will also team up with clients to offer guidance on how they work with their media agencies. She told Marketing that clients today are busy and sometimes don’t pay as much attention to directing media agencies as they should. “It’s hard to keep on top of [the media landscape] and there’s a lot of information out there,” said Richards. “There’s a lot of clients that don’t have media specialist staff on hand… to be able to tap into somebody with as much experience and seniority as I have that they could use on an infrequent basis to help them on key projects and timelines throughout the year to direct and inspire their media agency is an interesting business consideration.”
Related
• Richards helps roll out new promotional radio initiative
• Richards no longer at Media Experts
The news comes after Richards spent a year doing independent communications consulting, during which time she worked with groups including The Canadian Association of Radio Broadcasters, TC Media and The Globe and Mail. She said she hadn’t promoted her consultancy widely over that time. She kept things “pretty under the radar and part of that was because I wanted to make sure [officially launching a consulting company] was something I wanted to do.”
The name of the company comes from what Richards said she has done professionally over the decades. “My whole career has been fertilizing the ground to help make people more receptive to receiving messages or information,” she said, whether inspiring staff to innovate or consumers to be more engaged with messages or giving presentations to clients and media agencies.
