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Like their partners in the Canadian news industry, the country’s media agencies are undergoing unprecedented transformation. The National Post is having a series of conversations with leaders of Canada’s largest agencies on the fast-changing fundamentals and where the business is going next. This week, Noah Vardon, the president of Havas Media Group Canada, speaks to writer Rebecca Harris.

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How have the fundamentals of media planning and buying changed in recent years?

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In the past, it was harder to attribute the value of media to bottom-line results for our clients. That has shifted and is now very much a part of everything we do. There is still an art to (media planning and buying) and the people behind it, but (there’s more focus on) the science of media to make sure we’re driving business sales. We’re accountable for that now more than ever … At the same time, we talk a lot about meaningful media, which gets down to the idea of media that people trust and driving relevancy over just (metrics such as) reach and frequency. It’s about going beyond a million impressions and thinking about the full journey and experiences of the consumer and trying to connect all those dots. (Another shift is) the additional services we’re offering now. We used to have traditional, paid media planning and buying, but there are now many other things that make up media planning and buying, whether that’s analytics, content, influencers and now looking at AI.

How is your agency winning business today versus the past few years?

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Since I’ve been at the helm (June 2021), we’ve focused on thinking both from a product and service perspective. We’ve talked a bit about our meaningful media and that being a key product to how we deliver our services. But we also think of ourselves as a service, so it’s important for us to attract the best talent in the business. I’ve been trying to build the best team in the country. We have an incredible leadership team and we’ve got great talent at every level. It’s about investing in that type of differentiation (as we build deeper relationships with clients) … We’ve also recently acquired Noise Digital (a Vancouver-based digital agency and data consultancy). That was a response to the evolution of analytics, data and technology, and performance media. We’re expanding our capabilities in that space very quickly within Canada. That has helped us win (business) and we are now one of the largest agencies on the West Coast.

What are the biggest challenges for the industry today?

One of our challenges is making sure we’re building an upcoming talent base that can deliver on all the new technology. It’s up to us to make sure that we’re training our teams to understand technology and AI. That’s being done obviously through our education system, but it’s also up to the agencies to be able to deliver and scale that with teams and hands-on training. The more the more we have those types of skills, (the more) it will help advance our industry.

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Another challenge that we need to continue to work on is diversity. As much as I think we’ve made a lot of headway, it’s an opportunity for us to continually look to do better in that space, so it’s who we’re targeting, who we’re including, who we’re not including, and making sure that’s part of our evaluation and analysis when we’re doing media planning. That transcends into our people and making sure we’ve got people who are represented in every area. It’s a key thing I think every agency has to keep looking to deliver on.

What’s been the industry response to Bill C-18 and Google and Meta’s decision to block links to Canadian news sites from their channels?

There’s been a lot of discussion around it, which I’m happy to see. I’m part of the CMDC (Canadian Media Directors’ Council) and we’ve got a mission to invest in local news. We’re setting tangible targets to make sure that’s happening across all our (member) agencies. Rather than leaving it up to just the bill, it’s how do we make sure that investment is going into our local news and supporting (that) on an ongoing basis. And so, I’ve been having great dialogue across all the different agency heads, we’ve been having great dialogue with our clients, and our clients have asked great questions about it. Now, we’re hoping there will be an evolution to the bill in the future. Part of democracy is good conversation and debate around something that needs to evolve.

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Can you share a prediction on what’s next for the industry?

I see AI having a potential positive impact on how we come together as an industry. There’s an opportunity to streamline some tough tasks in media that people haven’t necessarily wanted to do [around] the technology of buying. We’re investing in how we simplify that process and how we deliver more precision in things like advanced types of segmentation. I think that will be easier as we have more advanced AI. So, I’m excited about AI and the evolution that’s going to have on the industry.

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