The Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada has expanded its board of directors to include three new advertising and media executives: McDonald’s Hope Bagozzi, The Globe and Mail‘s Andrew Saunders, and Microsoft Advertising’s Brandon Grosvenor.
The addition of Bagozzi is particularly significant because, unlike its counterparts in the U.S. and U.K. (which are entirely separate organizations), IAB Canada has made a commitment to represent the entire digital advertising industry in its leadership, including brands as well as media companies.
“The Canadian board is very much a representation of the industry at large, not just the publishers,” said Joe Strolz, chair of the IAB Canada board and general manager of AOL Canada. “That creates an advantage for our members because none of the things that make media work live in a silo… The marketers are increasingly bringing important inputs into the conversation at the board level, that help the IAB play the role that it needs the play on behalf of members.”
As senior director of creative and digital innovation at McDonald’s, Bagozzi has played a major role in developing the company’s digital media strategy. She was part of the team that helped create the “Our Food. Your Questions” campaign, for which McDonald’s won four Cannes Lions and Best of Show at the 2013 Marketing Awards.
Strolz said that the IAB has gained relevance with marketers as the digital ecosystem has rapidly matured in the past five years. Just last month, the IAB announced that Canadian digital spend had surpassed TV for the first time. Issues like the shift to mobile, the security of the media supply chain, and measurement standards are all top-of-mind for marketers.
“When you have [such a high] level of complexity, as a marketer it behooves you to understand more deeply how to execute in this world,” he said. “Not just ‘Am I keeping my partners and publishers honest,’ but ‘Have I set my own business unit up correctly, have I built the right capacities within my organization to succeed in this world of mobile, programmatic, content anywhere and video?”
Saunders and Grosvenor both hail from the media side of the business. Saunders, chief revenue officer for The Globe and Mail, has had extensive experience in digital and traditional media sales, leading sales teams at the Globe, Bell Globemedia and CTV.
Grosvenor, VP of sales at Microsoft Advertising & Online Canada, has held leadership positions at legacy publishers like Postmedia, Canwest, Sun Media and Yellow Pages Group. He made the move to Microsoft in February.
“While digital is obviously the fastest growing medium within the advertising sector, there is a ton of work to be done around setting standards, training and education as well as continuing to promote the interactive landscape in Canada,” Grosvenor told Marketing. “Change is a constant and the IAB plays a vital role in the evolution of interactive advertising in Canada.”
The three new board members replace two outgoing members: Bruno Leclaire of TC Media, and Michael Lorenzi, former director of brand development at Tim Hortons.
