Chris Williams, CM

ICYMI - IAB Tech Lab has developed comprehensive guidance to help navigate the complexity of ID solutions as we move closer towards cookie independence. Thanks Patti Summerfield and Media in Canada, for covering this important release from IAB Tech Lab - to access the guidance, see comments. #idsolutions #PETs #digitalads #advertising #data

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Data for the past few years at Canada's National Observer shows an 80% retention rate for paying subscribers. 👏 This exceptional figure stands out in the publishing industry for several reasons: 1. The average retention rate for digital news subscriptions typically ranges from 60-70%, putting our 80% rate above the norm. 2. This high retention rate indicates that our subscribers find consistent value in our content, returning year after year. 3. Such a high retention rate serves as a testament to the quality and relevance of our journalism, and its resonance with our audience. 4. Loyal subscribers engage with our content and each other, fostering a vibrant community around our platforms. Moving forward, we remain focused on delivering high-quality journalism about Canada's changing climate that our readers will value year after year. #DigitalMedia #SubscriptionBusiness #JournalismSuccess

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The programmatic media is in a constant state of evolution with new capabilities and new channels being added for the benefit of marketers. Each year Media in Canada profiles key players in the space. Take a read to learn more about programmatic media is evolving to be more effective. https://lnkd.in/gpwctXGC Teads, The Trade Desk, MiQ

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If you've been wondering how AI comes up with its trusted models and information, I'm guessing a list like this is not a bad proxy for how one ranking system can look at, say, journalism and media, and decide what's valuable. It's from a service called @prowly and it purports to list the top 100 media outlets in Canada. If you were based in Dallas or Shanghai it all looks plausible enough but you can see some of the subjective errors if you live here. They use a proprietary influence score based on: "number of social media followers the contact has, impact of the outlet they represent, completeness of their profile" You can see how the errors might start here - as it biases towards online presence of a certain kind the machines can scrape and analyze. And it doesn't distinguish between self-interested speech and public service information. It's also interesting that this list is what @google puts at the top of their search results (snake eating its own tail). Interesting that many companies (FreshBooks) and advocacy groups (@greenpeace) score as high as respected mainstream media like National Post, Inc. and @chatelaine Does an article on Freshbooks.com mean as much as a feature in the National Post? According to some metrics, yes. If you're just trying to reach eyeballs, it probably doesn't matter. But if you're building a model of the world you should figure out how to distinguish these sources the way a normal human would. https://lnkd.in/g94KdYzz

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We need to talk about RFPs… Media RFPs, especially from large Canadian agencies, once made sense — back when most ad dollars weren’t going to Google or Meta. You could justify the time and effort to RFP multiple media companies to negotiate the best rates and efficiencies, especially with upfront ad buying. Today, agencies are still issuing RFPs for the majority of one-off campaigns under $1M, demanding custom strategies, content ideas, marketing plans, and more — yet they pour millions monthly into Google and Meta without expecting even a fraction of that effort or support 🫠 For publishers, creating these proposals can take anywhere between 25 and 100 hours, depending on complexity, utilizing resources and time from multiple departments — often with only 24 to 72 hours' notice! When you compound that with an average 25% win rate, you’re often left with some agencies actually costing us money... Why do agencies accept minimal support from tech giants but require exhaustive work from publishers for smaller deals? Local media is not a charity play. If you don't see the economic benefit of working with us, then don't. Don’t waste everyone’s time trying to make yourself look good in front of your client or the industry. If you’re serious about working with a media partner, take the time to build a relationship — understand their pricing, capabilities, and media properties. It’s not rocket science... The best media companies are transparent and upfront and will give you tons of support if you reciprocate and be straight up with us. It’s time to step up, build long-term partnerships with local media, and create effective, cost-efficient strategies that benefit your brands and accounts in the long run.

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Remember, tomorrow is the AdAi: OOH Toronto Conference. This event is aimed at those already in AI wishing to learn more about the Out of Home Industry and for those in Out of Home who wish to better understand Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Let me know if you are going there, and we can connect there! 😎 #AI

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#Netflix major AdTech - defo preparing #AI future Thanks Roger! This is the most comprehensive article I am reading on this topic! Watch this space! 📺 #CTV #AdTech #RetailMedia

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The deep insights, personalized experience and opportunities that this partnership can create for our brand teams, audiences and marketing partners is very exciting! #b2bmarketing #marketing #b2bmedia #b2bcontent #smartmarketing

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With the news of DDB, BBDO and TBWA Canada merging into “Omnicom Advertising Services”, it’s officially a new era in the industry. These were three of the most dominant advertising agencies in the country for decades. Anyone working at or with these companies around the world - this is what’s coming. It’s not if, it’s when. So please prepare yourselves. Play chess not checkers with your career and livelihood. You’ve got to look after yourself and your family and you need to start planning what’s best for you right now. To all CEO’s, Boards of Governors, CMO’s, VP Marketing, Director of Marketing, Marketing Managers, CFO’s, COO’s and so on: The agency world is being massively disrupted (it has been for a while but it’s now in high gear) and I highly recommend you start looking at Plan B to protect your brand and put it into a position to thrive. Independent agencies around the world are thriving. They’re doing great work for clients because the people running those companies have skin in the game. If you do really well - they do well. Independent agencies are just hustling more. Independent agencies are running circles around the bigger, slower moving international companies. They’re doing really great work that’s working. Many of the most talented people in our industry have now moved over to working at an independent agency. When you hire an independent agency, the money goes back into the business. A great independent agency will hire the very best people. They’ll invest in tech. They’ll invest in things that will help your business thrive. They win if you win. Reach out and meet an independent agency or two and see if they’re the right fit for your brand and your team. If so, just try them on a project and let them earn their work. Don’t ask them for any free speculative work because that’s unethical. But sample them on a project. It’s the perfect time to try something new. There are many great independent agencies in cities and countries all over the world who are doing fantastic work. We at One Twenty Three West are just one of them and we’d be happy to connect. 123w.ca ***People from all over the world are going to read this post. All independent agencies are welcome to promote their business in the comments. Share the thread.

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Check out the Outlook 2024, where we take a glimpse into the future to consider how culture, technology, and society come together and affect Canada’s marketing landscape in the years to come. https://lnkd.in/gSsZkzbj

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Spotify raising prices in Canada in response to new regulations will be a really good test of whether or not music streaming is an oligopoly. If you haven't heard, the company is raising prices because of the Online Streaming Act coming into force, which will require foreign streaming providers to contribute 5% of Canadian revenues to a fund that will support Canadian broadcasters. Spotify's price increases, however, are ranging from 15% to 24%, depending on the plan - with the company citing "macroeconomic factors." Yet Spotify, though popular, does not have a monopoly and therefore does not have market power in music streaming. Bigger, better resourced competitors abound in the form of Google, Apple and Amazon. So far, none of those providers have announced price increases to their music streaming services (that I know of). None of them really need to, so it'll be interesting to see if they do. While a 5% increase by these providers might be understandable to equal the cost of the new regulation, anything more would suggest that music streaming really isn't that competitive and is closer to the sort of oligopoly we're so used to in the telecom market. https://lnkd.in/geyAU5_q

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For #Marketers and #Communicators... Here is question 16 of my #FrequentlyAskedQuestionSeries ✋🏻✋🏼✋🏽✋🏾✋🏿: Q: "I'm trying to be inclusive in our upcoming campaign TV ad. How can I tell if the commercial is tokenizing or not?" A: "Although there are a lot more layers and nuance to it, a simple way to test if your commercial script is tokenizing underrepresented communities or not is as follows; replace all the underrepresented individuals in your script with people from the dominant culture. If you do that and your script still "makes sense" ie. the story doesn't change, then likely you're tokenizing these individuals. Why? Well, people with different lived experience should experience your script's story in a different way. If they don't, likely, the inclusion of these individuals is very surface-level, and doesn't have the deep cultural nuance required to be authentically inclusive. Remember, diversity =/= inclusion" What are your thoughts? I invite you to discuss and ask more questions in the comments! --- Follow me next week for question 17 of my #FrequentlyAskedQuestionSeries! What is the #FrequentlyAskedQuestionSeries? Every week I'll answer common questions that we receive at AndHumanity, Inclusive Marketing Agency on #InclusiveMarketing and #InclusiveCommunications. --- #JEDI #EDI #InclusionMatters #InclusiveBusiness #InclusiveLeadership 

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⏰ Marketing News Canada alert! I had the pleasure of speaking with one of Canada's top marketers Stephen Kiely of Dentsu Creative Canada. We spoke about his origin story, what brands have to watch out for and what agency folks have to consider to move up in their careers! Thanks Stephen Kiely for a fun time! 👍 https://lnkd.in/gPDwaHmU #marketingcareers #marketingpodcast #marketingnewcanada #agencylife

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Marketing research professionals should take heed of the pollsters’ problems If the experts crunching data to predict elections are getting it wrong, why should we trust the experts to predict consumer behaviours? My latest Free to Disagree column in Campaign Canada https://lnkd.in/eitc6T_7

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Naturally, this news will be welcomed with a sigh of relief from some IAB Canada members who have been diligently working towards the deprecation deadline to test alternatives. Many of our members have invested significantly towards new means of addressing audiences in the past year and many had started to report optimistic results. No effort has been wasted as the industry continues to evolve to improve protections for consumers and the mounting regulatory compliance requirements both domestically and across borders. Google’s decision to maintain access to third party cookies while they continue to work through the APIs to build more robust privacy-first solutions is a smart (if not inevitable) move. Some significant and impressive developments in the coming months might result from the extra time being spent to focus efforts on the efficacy and implementation details of a stronger Privacy Sandbox toolkit. This is not however, the time to stop lessening dependence on third party cookie addressability. It's time to invest in privacy protecting strategies that include consent-based data processing - if you've done so - don't look back. It's also important to continue exploring and testing the Google Privacy Sandbox APIs – this will undoubtedly provide valuable learning and inspire innovation. #data #onlineadvertising #cookies #google #iabcanada #privacy

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