The marketing world never sleeps, which means there are bound to be things that fly under your radar. To make sure you’re up to speed, here’s some news you might have missed over the last week:
Hires, promotions and changes
Alberta’s Red has bolstered its ranks, hiring Jonathan Manning (pictured, near right) as ACD to partner with Nigel Hood (pictured, far right). Manning joins from Calder Bateman, where he had been a copywriter for the past two years, and has also had stints at Free and Mosaic. The agency has also hired Matthew Gillott, former marketing director at Toyota’s Prairie Dealer Association, as brand director earlier this year, and has added Erika Navarra, Lyndsey Manyluk and Cory White to its account team.
Citizen Relations has reshaped its executive team with new SVP, general managers for its offices in Toronto, Vancouver and Quebec. In Vancouver, long-time VP and member of the agency’s North American leadership team David Brodie has been promoted to the role. In Toronto, Rob Moore has been hired for the position after 16 years of experience on the client side in senior positions at Rogers, OLG, Loblaw and Hudson’s Bay, and fills a role previous held by Nick Cowling, who was named president of Citizen Relations Canada in May. In Quebec, Anik Trudel has been hired to lead Citoyen Optimum, coming from a VP of corporate communications role at Gildan and having also spent five years as executive director at Edelman Montreal. Trudel fills a position previously held by Isabel Perras, who left the agency earlier this year for a role at SNC-Lavalin.
Praxis has promoted five of its staff. Matt Juniper has been named account director and social strategist, with Andrea Helmer promoted to account director in the agency’s consumer practice. Alex Thomas has been promoted to account manager and social media manager, focusing on the agency’s lifestyle brands. Christina Pozzobon has been named senior account executive, focusing on spirits and hospitality accounts, and Alexandra Siklos has been promoted to senior account executive and community manager.
Director Craig Brownrigg (pictured, right) has joined production house Frank Content. Brownrigg has worked on both the production and agency side, including stints at Zig, MacLaren McCann, Ogilvy and Radke Films, and with brands including Ikea, Amazon and Bud Light.
Environics has added three to its Toronto office. Leanne Bull joins as a consultant from Veritas, Oana Ungureanu joins as a project manager from Sonic Boom and Vanida Lim joins as an intermediate designer from Union.
New business
The new hires at Red mentioned above have largely been in response to organic growth from existing clients, as well as a number of new web development assignments, including Warwick International Hotels, Special Olympics Alberta and oncology research institute TRIO.
L’Oreal’s Vichy Canada has selected Bicom Communications as its national public relations AOR, handling all media relations, strategic partnerships, influencer engagement and launch events. Bicom was awarded the status after handling the brand’s PR over the last year, which included the successful “#VichyWorksForMe” campaign.
Mosaic has won a mandate from Loblaw-owned Provigo chain of supermarkets for a series of activations at Montreal’s Bell Centre. The activations, taking place during Montreal Canadiens games this season, will focus on condiment bars featuring President’s Choice and PC Black Collection products.
Zenergy Communications has been named agency of record on the Italian Trade Commission’s upcoming Taste of Wines from Italy series of events. The agency, which won the work after a competitive RFP involving four other agencies, will handle creative development and execution of the events, which are in their 20th year. The Commission has been ramping up its activity promoting authentic Italian-made products recently, having named Sid Lee AOR for its broader awareness efforts earlier this year.
Media
CBC has fully embraced programmatic, announcing that all of its display inventory would be made available through private marketplace Index Exchange.
Quebecor made two major announcements regarding its traditional and digital content. First, it signed a co-development deal with NBCUniversal to create factual and studio-based program formats for international audiences. Second, it announced the launch of a YouTube MCN dubbed Goji.
Rogers announced it would be releasing a 4K-enabled set top box and rolling out a slate of 4K sport and entertainment programming next year.
