CMA Connect

Canadian Marketing Association
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  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Welcome to CMA Connect - the voice of the Canadian marketing community. Join us for empowering discussions with industry leaders about the rapidly changing world of marketing.

  1. 1D AGO

    EP65 - Loyalty, Adaptability, and Growth with Lindsay Chase

    What have you learned that has allowed you to adapt and evolve in your marketing career? In today's episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, sits down virtually with Lindsay Chase, Senior Strategist at Elemental, to explore her nine year journey at Elemental. They dive into her progression from Account Executive to Senior Strategist, her loyalty to her craft, her adaptability, and her pursuit of what truly matters.  00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO, Alison Simpson. 00:00:23.520 — 00:02:20.140 · Alison For today's episode, I am thrilled to welcome Lindsay Chase, Senior Strategist at Elemental and our 2025 CMA AIM Award winner. The AIM Award celebrates achievement of marketing by a rising star in our profession, who is absolutely destined for great leadership roles. Lindsay's speech at the CMA Awards show was equal parts inspiring, entertaining and compelling, and I know that our conversation will be that as well. Lindsay's journey into marketing began with a background in English literature. She was drawn by what she describes as the fascinating blend of creativity meeting science that defines modern marketing. She's passionate about delivering strong business results through compelling storytelling, creating human narratives that really resonate in meaningful ways. Lindsay describes her nine year tenure at Elemental as making her a bit of a unicorn in today's agency world, and I absolutely agree for a much longer tenure in one agency than is typically the case, since most people switch about every two years instead of taking that approach. Lindsay has built her career elemental, progressing from account executive to senior strategist. Her insights into how her generation is learning and developing skills offers a really fascinating window into the future of marketing careers. Like all of us, Lindsay is experiencing firsthand how AI has begun reshaping marketing practices, making them more uniform, scalable, and streamlined, while also raising critical questions about skill development and strategic thinking. Her perspective on the importance of mentorship in a rapidly changing landscape, as well as how to maintain strategic thinking in an increasingly automated world, makes this conversation as essential listening for anyone interested in marketing's future. And I can also share with our listeners that when you listen to Lindsay, by the end of this conversation, like me, you will feel very, very positive and optimistic about how bright our future marketing is with talented marketers like Lindsay rising through the ranks. So welcome, Lindsay. It is absolutely wonderful to have you join us on CMA Connect. 00:02:20.180 — 00:02:25.140 · Lindsay Thank you Alison, it's wonderful to be here. And I'm looking very forward to our conversation today. 00:02:25.260 — 00:02:36.020 · Alison Let's start with your story. I'd love to hear what drew you to marketing, and how did you see this as an opportunity to really transform your English literature degree and love of stories into a career? 00:02:36.180 — 00:03:22.820 · Lindsay Yeah, it's a great question. You know, I tend to start with saying I didn't choose marketing because I loved ads. I feel very few people maybe do make that choice for that reason. I actually chose it because I've always loved stories. And marketing is where stories can really change outcomes in English Lit. I learned how to read between the lines subtext. Motivation. Character tension. the gap between what people say and what they mean. So that to me was basically consumer insight in a lot of ways. And marketing gave me a way to take that skill and kind of apply it to real people, real decisions and real businesses. It's effectively storytelling with consequences. So all of that to say, what definitely drew me in is a mix of that empathy and structure, and you can really feel something and prove it in marketing. 00:03:22.860 — 00:03:48.260 · Alison I absolutely love your definition of storytelling with consequences and beyond consequences, it's storytelling with an ability to have such a significant and important impact on brands and businesses, our economy, and ultimately our communities. So I love that definition. Thank you. I'm also curious, when you were graduating, was marketing and agency roles in particular a career that many of your fellow graduates were thinking of pursuing? 00:03:48.380 — 00:04:35.790 · Lindsay Another great question. Certainly a few, but admittedly, many of my peers went into, you know, the worlds of tech, finance, law adjacent paths and so on. I found that in discussions with them, agency life wasn't necessarily the obvious route. Marketing can definitely feel like a less defined path, and that ambiguity can be intimidating when you're graduating and everyone's asking, what are you going to do? And you want to have that very kind of clear answer ideally. I also think a lot of people don't realize that marketing is a training ground. You get exposure to categories, audiences, channels, leadership styles and real business problems very quickly. So it's certainly an area that, you know, though sometimes maybe discounted is one very much worth its salt. And I hope that more, more folks explore when they are looking at that graduation period in their life. 00:04:35.830 — 00:04:40.990 · Alison Now, I'd also love to hear what it meant to you to be recognized with the CMA AIM Award. 00:04:41.030 — 00:05:44.880 · Lindsay Yeah, that was a great honour and even better evening and congrats to the CMA for making it such a fun and impactful evening. But to me, I'd say the CMA Award was never just an individual recognition in reference to the speech I gave. If no one's sick of hearing it at this point, you know, I referenced the idea that if I've seen further, it's because I've stood on the shoulders of giants and that's genuinely how I view it. Any progress I've made has been shaped by the people around me, and that goes multifold. For the mentors who pushed my thinking, the teammates who challenged my ideas and the clients that trusted the process. And that's really what the industry is at its best, is that collective effort to make something better than any one person could on their own. So in reflection of the award, it certainly felt like that, you know, not just the work, but the environment that makes the work possible. And the CMA, to me represents that spirit of creativity, collaboration and a shared standard of excellence. So it was a great honour and great excitement for myself and all those that I got to celebrate with. 00:05:45.120 — 00:06:24.840 · Alison It was definitely a good celebration and certainly a well deserved celebration. Now, Lindsay, you mentioned that marketing wasn't the most popular choice among your peers, in large part because it really can be pretty overwhelming for students to understand what marketing roles are, given the breadth and certainly complexity of our profession. Obviously, from a CMA perspective, from a professional perspective, we do want to be a desired destination for students in the months and years ahead. So what do you think we can do to help the next generation better understand and navigate this complexity and make more competitive and desirable on par with tech and finance when it comes to talent? 00:06:25.120 — 00:07:29.450 · Lindsay I think we have to stop explaining marketing like it's a list of job titles. You know, it's more of a system overall. And the best way to maybe demystify it is to teach some of those fundamentals - human behaviour, business strategy, creative problem solving, and the measurement of all those things. Once you can get a grasp on those four pillars, every specialization becomes less overwhelming, especially to those who maybe don't have the full visibility or insight. And when it comes to tech and finance, you know, specifically, I find that they can sell certainty, you know. Clear ladders, clear compensation narratives, prestige signals. You know, all the things that go into that. And I think where marketing can expand is by selling its impact. You know, you get to shape culture and build brands that people live with and drive real business outcomes, just like tech and finance can. So if we want that talent and future marketers to walk through our doors, I think we need to show that marketing is certainly anything but fluff and a great opportunity to build a career and life around. 00:07:29.530 — 00:07:56.770 · Alison That was so well said, and it's also incredibly timely. We have recently launched the CMA Marketing Impact Study that does exactly that. It quantifies the mission critical role that marketing plays in building Canadian businesses, increasing our country's ability to innovate, and dramatically contributing to our economy and GDP. So that will give us some very valuable tools to really entice the next generation of talent to. 00:07:56.810 — 00:08:20.940 · Lindsay Yeah, it's a great effort, and I think the other piece is being willing and ready to have some fun with it. You know, I think of all the ads and jingles and brands that stick in my head as some of my favourites, and it's not just a moment in time. It really does stay with us as we move through our lives, and it's something that everyone hopefully will get more and more clarity around and be interested in. 00:08:21.260 — 00:08:36.780 · Alison Absolutely. Now, you've been at Elemental for nine years and you started as an account exec, moved to Senior Strategy and calling yourself a bit of a unicorn for how long you've been with one agency. So what's kept

    24 min

  2. MAR 25

    EP64 - Deceptive Marketing Exposed with Josephine Palumbo

    In this episode of CMA Connect, Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with Josephine Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner for the Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate at the Competition Bureau of Canada, to decode Canadian origin claims and emerging fraud threats. Josephine explains the critical distinctions between "Made in Canada" and "Product of Canada," how tariffs impact threshold calculations, and practical guidance for avoiding maple washing. The conversation expands to the Bureau's Fraud Prevention Month focus, including the alarming rise of AI-generated scams using deep fakes to impersonate government officials. 00:00:01.720 — 00:00:20.280 · Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:22.880 — 00:02:16.740 · Alison In an era of renewed Canadian patriotism and heightened awareness of global supply chains, consumers are absolutely paying closer attention than ever to where their products are coming from. With ongoing tariff discussions, a growing desire to support domestic industries, Made in Canada and Product of Canada claims have become more than just marketing messages. They are promises that Canadians absolutely expect businesses to keep. For this episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Josephine Palumbo, Deputy Commissioner for the Deceptive Marketing Practices Directorate at the Competition Bureau of Canada. In her pivotal role, Josephine leads efforts to detect, investigate, and deter false or misleading representations and deceptive marketing practices across Canada. With over 25 years of experience at the Department of Justice and Competition Bureau, including significant work as Deputy Executive Director and Senior Litigation Counsel. Josephine has been at the forefront of major enforcement actions involving companies like Amazon, Ticketmaster and Volkswagen. Josephine expertise extends globally. She served as president of the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network in 2020, representing Canada among over 65 protection agencies worldwide. Her directorate's mandate includes enforcement under the Competition Act, Consumer Packaging and Labeling Act, the Precious Metals Marketing Act, and Textile Labeling Act, which gives her comprehensive oversight of marketing claims that matter the most to Canadian consumers. So as we navigate an increasingly complex marketplace where maple washing and misleading origin claims can absolutely undermine consumer trust. Josephine's insights into what constitutes truthful advertising, along with the real world consequences of getting it wrong, have never been more relevant for Canadian marketers, so I am absolutely thrilled to welcome Josephine. It is a pleasure to host you on CMA Connect, and I'm really looking forward to our conversation. 00:02:16.780 — 00:02:20.780 · Josephine I'm so glad to be here, Alison. I'm looking forward to our talk. 00:02:20.940 — 00:02:44.220 · Alison We're going to cover a lot of hot topics that are crucial and important to marketers in Canada and also Canadians, so I know we will have a rapt audience. So, Josephine, let's start with why Made in Canada and Product of Canada claims matter so much to both consumers and businesses. Obviously, with renewed Canadian patriotism at the forefront of everyone's mind, how does today's environment compare to what you've seen historically? 00:02:44.260 — 00:03:53.790 · Josephine Well, let me start by saying that in the past, country of origin claims may not have been top of mind for most consumers, but today, Alison, Canadians are far more focused on transparency, on authenticity and knowing where their products truly come from. There are many factors driving this trend today, and I can list some of them, including national pride and that desire to support Canadian made goods. The commitment to support the Canadian job market and local industry's concerns about the economy and environmental impacts of purchasing decisions, and the belief that Canadian made products are held to higher standards of quality for businesses. I would say honesty and clearly representing product origin builds consumer trust and helps them steer clear of legal complications, which is always a good thing. On the other hand, misleading claims risk harming consumers, their fair competitors and the wider market and could result in enforcement under the Competition Act and the other relevant legislation when representations are false or misleading. 00:03:53.830 — 00:04:31.240 · Alison  That's very helpful, and it's really rewarding in many ways to hear that Canadians, and we've seen this in other research too, Canadians through the tariffs, through the challenging political and economic times, are really embracing Made in Canada and wanting to give back to the local businesses and brands and support our local economy as well. So there's lots of encouraging reasons for the renewed patriotism that's hopefully having a positive impact on Canada's GDP as well.  Josephine: Absolutely.  Alison: Now, many people don't realize that there's quite a significant distinction between a Made in Canada claim and a Product of Canada claim. Can you explain the difference and what businesses need to know? 00:04:31.280 — 00:06:27.660 · Josephine Sure. I would say that the distinctions are significant, and they're clearly laid out in the Competition Bureau's guidelines that have been updated in March of 2025, so last year. So let me start. And it's a little technical. So Product of Canada is what I refer to as the gold standard. It means virtually all, at least 98% of the direct production costs, including input or materials and labor, are from Canada. This threshold exists to protect consumers from being misled by claims that imply total Canadian origin. On the other side, we have Made in Canada, which indicates that the majority or 51% or more of the direct costs were Canadian, and this type of claim should be accompanied by a qualifying statement, such as Made in Canada from domestic and imported parts to accurately inform consumers. I should say that both Product of Canada and Made in Canada representations, the product's last substantial transformation occurs in Canada, and that is the product comes into being in Canada. It isn't merely assembled or labeled or packaged here, it is made into something meaningfully new. And here, Alison, let me just say, for businesses, it's essential to review the cost breakdowns regularly to ensure compliance with these thresholds, especially if sourcing changes are occurring. We at the Competition Bureau, we evaluate these claims based not only on the literal meaning of marketing materials, but also on how consumers might interpret such claims. So we would be looking at everything like the words,  mix of words, images, illustrations, or even the overall layout. And this is what we call the general impression. So again, it's very important. Clarity and honesty are paramount. 00:06:28.220 — 00:06:39.900 · Alison One of the newer claims I've seen emerging with renewed Canadian patriotism over the last year and a bit is Packaged in Canada. So when might those claims be considered misleading to consumers? 00:06:39.900 — 00:08:17.840 · Josephine So Packaged in Canada for us means like a product arrived mostly finished from another country and only its packaging was added locally. This claim, we would say, could be misleading to consumers if not clearly explained. So the Bureau again encourages the use of qualified claims where the information provided is accurate, relevant and useful. Let me say that the Bureau again, it looks at not only the words, but the whole concept, the general impression created. Sometimes businesses don't realize or understand this and think that as long as they are truthful, that should be good enough and that is not always the case. Again, the general impression has to be taken into consideration. For example, one case that we litigated, well, we didn't litigate, but we settled this case, and that was in 2016. So the Bureau investigated Moose Knuckles for concerns relating to advertising and labeling of some of its parkas as Made in Canada. And here, Alison, the Bureau found some Moose Knuckle parkas were marketed as Canadian- made, despite being mostly manufactured elsewhere, only with the finishing touches to the jackets being made here in Canada, like adding the trim or the zipper and the snaps, those were done in Canada.  And with the Competition Bureau, we resolve the matter with the company, who agreed to donate 750,000 over a five year period to Canadian charities, including those providing winter coats to children in need. The company also committed to clearly labeling and advertising, making it explicit when products are made with both Canadian and imported parts. 00:08:17.920 — 00:08:52.770 · Alison That's a great example that speaks to the importance of being fair and truthful to Canadians and how we're marketing, but also the important consequences that businesses will and should pay when they don't follow the letter of the law. Now, for our listeners, we also have an article that we've written around all of the different Made in Canada, Product of Canada claims that elaborates on some of what Josephine has shared. So we will add it into our listener notes for anyone that's listening and wants to read more. We'll have the link in our notes. So, Josephine, what are some of the common mistakes you've seen businesses make when they've made origin claims? 00:08:52.770 — 00:09:46.010 · Josephine So businesses often make mistakes by failing to provide, for example, appropriate qualifying statements using ambiguous

    24 min

  3. MAR 4

    EP63 - IBM's blueprint for scaling AI in marketing with Alexis Zamkow and Miglena Nikolova

    Are you prepared to future-proof your brand with AI? Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with IBM's AI experts Alexis Zamkow, Global Offering Leader for Intelligent Marketing at IBM Consulting, and Miglena Nikolova, Senior Portfolio Advisory Marketing Lead at IBM Canada, to explore how marketers can move from AI experimentation to real business impact. With 70% of creative work being busy work, IBM has used AI to slash legal approval cycles from 6 weeks to 6 days. As ChatGPT challenges Google's search dominance, marketers need to learn how to 'market to machines' that are making decisions for consumers. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:25:15 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:25:17 - 00:00:51:01 Alison In today's episode, we explore a topic that is top of mind for all marketers - how to future-proof ourselves, our teams and our businesses, especially when it comes to Gen AI. Our CMA research found that future-proofing is a top priority for 97% of Canadian marketers. This includes understanding how technologies like AI are impacting marketing, as well as changing consumer behaviours and best practices. 00:00:51:03 - 00:01:24:14 Alison The good news is that 74% of CMA members are using Gen AI tools for work at least weekly. This actually exceeds the average of 62% among Canadian knowledge workers that include academics, physicians, engineers, and scientists. So we're certainly off to a good start, but there is absolutely a lot more to do since AI is playing an increased role in brands and a more important part in day to day life in Canada. Today, I'm happy to be joined by two marketing leaders from IBM who are living this transformation from both the creative and the technical sides. 00:01:24:15 - 00:01:48:08 Alison Today's conversation is not about the latest AI tool or the newest capability. It's about the practical, sometimes messy work of incorporating and leveraging AI and marketing in business and helping future-proof your brand. Alexis Zamkow is the Global Offering Leader for Intelligent Marketing within IBM Consulting, where she's at the forefront of helping CMOs navigate the generative AI transformation. 00:01:48:10 - 00:02:23:00 Alison Alexis specializes in translating complex AI capabilities into practical marketing solutions, helping organizations move from proof of concept to skilled implementation while addressing the critical challenges of cost management, change management, and governance. Miglena Nikolova brings over 20 years of marketing and communications expertise. She currently serves as Senior Portfolio Advisory Marketing Lead for IBM Canada. At IBM, she's exploring how Gen AI is reshaping creativity and authenticity in their marketing and also leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity and innovation. 00:02:23:02 - 00:02:26:01 Alison Welcome, Alexis and Miglena. It's great to have you with me today. 00:02:26:03 - 00:02:28:07 Alexis It's great to be here. Thanks for having us. 00:02:28:09 - 00:02:48:22 Miglena Thank you, Alison, for this warm welcome and introduction. And I would also like to add that Alexis and I are very active in the Canadian marketing community. I sit on the CMA Creativity Council and Alexis is part of the Artificial Intelligence Committee. So in this podcast, we would also be representing the work that we do as part of these rewarding assignments. 00:02:49:00 - 00:03:07:16 Alison Well thank you for being among our highly engaged CMA members who are helping provide a lot of great thought leadership and a lot of great discussion and debate around hot topics that are important to everyone in our profession. I would love to start with your personal AI journeys. So how are you each using AI both personally and professionally? 00:03:07:21 - 00:03:09:12 Alison Miglena, do you want to kick things off? 00:03:09:14 - 00:03:38:14 Miglena Absolutely. Alison, thank you for this question. Because, you know, scaling AI is very much about how we, on a personal level are adopting the new ways of working. And personally, I use it for research, note-taking, often for fun things and projects I'm exploring outside of work. One of the questions I'm pondering on the personal side is what it will mean to write a book in the future, because there are just so many challenges and opportunities in this space. 00:03:38:18 - 00:04:05:23 Miglena And on the professional side, for marketing, I use predominantly our Consulting Advantage app, which has so many features and applications that literally the sky is the limit in what we can accomplish. We have access to assistants, agents that can help make tasks much faster and more comprehensive than perhaps we ever thought possible, so we can leverage our agents to help us with image recognition, notes and files analysis, 00:04:05:23 - 00:04:35:23 Miglena PowerPoint generators, summarization. I can give you an example. At a recent marketing event, we hosted over ten separate round tables, each one with notes for the discussion. And then we loaded all the notes in our Executive Summarizer and asked, what were the common themes, what were the unique points, etc. and in minutes, literally, we were able to to generate and share a much more comprehensive and enriching summary of the learnings. 00:04:36:00 - 00:04:48:09 Miglena So I also routinely leverage AI for writing marketing emails, blogs, graphs, social posts from the perspective of our subject matter experts. And really, that saves a lot of time. 00:04:48:11 - 00:05:10:11 Alexis So similar to Miglena, our organization is absolutely committed to ensuring that we use generative AI in all aspects of our business. Now I'm in the offering space, so I help to build new offerings for our customers. And so research is important for us. Synthetic research using different personas, different industry groups. We can run ideas for our offerings 00:05:10:11 - 00:05:37:02 Alexis and value proposition is against those synthetic personas and get some early ideas around, you know, how do we reposition some of our messaging? How do we change some of our offerings to address some of the, the big concerns, that maybe some of our customers have so we are really focusing in on how to solve for those concerns. And how to make sure that our brand is true to the essence of how we're positioning ourselves. 00:05:37:04 - 00:05:58:04 Alexis So on an offering perspective, you know, there's a lot of great ways that generative AI can support a marketer. Idea generation, we're trying to apply the gen AI to come up with, you know, what's the next great ideas that our clients are really going to take a hold of. So ideation is definitely an area of interest. 00:05:58:04 - 00:06:17:07 Alexis And then a lot of the pragmatic things that Miglena mentioned. So when we're writing copy, if I want to get it really personal to an industry or to a specific influencer, we leverage personas to be able to make sure that our messages are bang on as to what that individual's needs are and, to make it really highly personalized. 00:06:17:09 - 00:06:41:20 Alexis So it is embedded within the entire offering area. But at the same time, I work with clients on how they're embedding it in their own operations, so across the entire end-to-end marketing content, supply chain and campaign development, we're coming up with great ways that agents can work simultaneously with humans to improve productivity, also to drive revenue. 00:06:41:22 - 00:07:05:06 Alexis We're moving very rapidly from a situation of testing, trialing, piloting to scaling. Scaling does require different capabilities to be addressed, and we're working with our clients to help them to do that. IBM, as you guys know, is committed to AI for a very long time. We go back to Jeopardy and Watson. We are steeped in the AI space. 00:07:05:08 - 00:07:50:19 Alexis And so as things have evolved over the last, you know, probably five years as ten AI has really come to the forefront, our organization has also moved into that space. And our own marketing teams have embraced gen AI really from the beginning. To be able to create a process and a workflow that has agents supporting the entire content supply chain from insights development, being able to scan our product information and make recommendations on how to best position products, the content creator, which then allows you to take, pre-configured templates and be able to assign - here's the target market, here's the product that I'm interested in, here's the key messages and gives you different options 00:07:50:19 - 00:08:20:12 Alexis around how can you position this. And it isn't about completing it. It's about the start, the starting of the process to allow the creativity to accelerate. And then once that that creative has gone through the process of initial approvals, validation was always a big challenge for us. And we knew that that cycle had to be shortened. So we built agents to be able to take our legals, our brand standards and be able to apply that to the content that we were creating 00:08:20:14 - 00:08:43:00 Alexis to be able to really shorten up that cycle. Didn't eliminate it. And for most of our clients, you know, elimination isn't the game right now, but to be able to reduce the number of iterations required to go through the legal process was able to allow us to move from something that would normally take six weeks to be able to create, say, a campaign for a social media engagement, six weeks to six days. 00:08:43:02 - 00:09:01:01 Alexis And I didn't say six minutes, but eventually we might get to six minutes. But right now it is about those iterative improvements that you start automating tasks that you

    30 min

  4. FEB 17

    EP62 - Future proofing the marketing profession with Alan Depencier

    In this special episode, CMA CEO Alison Simpson sits down with RBC CMO and CMA Board Chair Alan Depencier, to interview each other as both transition from CMA leadership roles in 2026. They celebrate achievements including 150+ new member organizations, the DMSC and AI playbook success, while unveiling 2026 plans for Marketing Week's national expansion, new councils and much more. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:23:19 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:23:21 - 00:00:41:08 Alison I am absolutely thrilled to welcome back Alan Depencier, the chair of CMA's Board of Directors, to our podcast today, where we will be discussing all that we have planned for the CMA in 2026. This year marks a milestone for both Alan and I, as he is wrapping up his term as our CMA Board Chair, and I will be retiring in May. 00:00:41:14 - 00:00:58:00 Alison So we're also going to take a little bit of time to reflect on our time together, what we've accomplished, and why the CMA has such an important role in future-proofing marketers and our profession. We're going to take a bit of a different approach to the episode, too, with Alan turning the tables on me by asking me a few questions. 00:00:58:02 - 00:01:26:02 Alison Alan was elected to the CMA board in 2019 and has contributed significantly. He's been a member of CMA's Member Engagement and Human Resource Committees, Chaired the Finance and Audit Committee, and served as Board Vice Chair before his appointment as Chair in May 2024. Alan also played a pivotal role in the creation of our CMA NXT program, which helps university and college students bridge the gap between post-secondary education and starting their professional life in marketing. 00:01:26:04 - 00:01:47:01 Alison In addition to all of his outstanding contributions to the CMA, Alan has a really inspiring career in marketing. He has held senior marketing roles at RBC for 21 years, including most recently as Chief Marketing Officer for Commercial Banking and Insurance. Prior to his tenure at RBC, Alan managed consumer packaged goods brands and spearheaded the growth of a startup venture. 00:01:47:03 - 00:01:51:08 Alison So welcome back Alan. I am absolutely looking forward to a great conversation today. 00:01:51:10 - 00:01:59:14 Alan Thanks, Alison. I'm excited to join you once again. And I'm excited that we get to, you know, reverse roles for a bit. I get to ask you some questions. 00:01:59:16 - 00:02:20:09 Alison Definitely going to be a fun one. So, Alan, between your very demanding role as CMO at RBC and your many CMA Board commitments, plus your involvement with the overall CMA, everything from helping create CMA NXT to chairing multiple committees and now being our Board Chair, you've clearly invested tremendous time and a great deal of energy in our profession. 00:02:20:11 - 00:02:25:04 Alison So what drives that passion and what has kept you so engaged with CMA's mission? 00:02:25:06 - 00:02:45:17 Alan Great question Alison. You know, at the core, I believe marketing really matters. When it's done well, it drives business growth, it strengthens brands, and it can genuinely improve people's lives. I see that every day at RBC. What the CMA gives me is a chance to zoom out and help shape that profession as a whole, but not just for one organization. 00:02:45:19 - 00:03:08:22 Alan And what initially pulled me in was the people. You know, when you're surrounded by some of the smartest marketers in the country, you know, tackling some of the biggest issues like AI, privacy, trust, it's incredibly energizing. But it became personal when I saw the impact of what we could actually make on the industry. You know, I'm a much better marketer today by being a part of the CMA, and I would encourage most folks to take advantage of the opportunity that sits in front of them. 00:03:09:00 - 00:03:31:11 Alan CMA NXT is a great example. We didn't just talk about the gap between school and the workplace. We built something that helped students launch their real careers. Seeing the kind of tangible impact, it's super powerful. And honestly, what kept me engaged is that the CMA is where the future of marketing is in Canada is really being shaped. Being part of that, especially alongside leaders like you, has been one of the most rewarding chapters of my career. 00:03:31:13 - 00:03:41:19 Alison Thanks Alan, that means a lot. Now we're going to turn the tables. Although you're not officially off the hook, you get to ask me a few questions, but I'm definitely going to get you back for some other questions later in the podcast. 00:03:41:21 - 00:03:42:13 Alan This is great. 00:03:42:13 - 00:03:43:06 Alison So over to you. 00:03:43:12 - 00:04:07:20 Alan Okay. First question. Alison, you've led the CMA through what I've characterized as a complete transformation. When you look at where we are today versus where we were in the past, with our significantly expanded benefits for members, our AI master series featuring 32 practical playbooks, the DMSC program up-skilling of 1900 marketers and supporting 700 small and medium sized enterprises, and a record member satisfaction scores. 00:04:07:22 - 00:04:11:15 Alan What do you see as a turning point that made this level of change possible? 00:04:11:17 - 00:04:37:19 Alison Oh, you're clearly starting with an easy question I see. So, you know Alan, I really think the turning point was when we truly embraced the CMAs important role and helping future-proof the marketing profession and took a really collaborative approach. So the transformation happened because our Board, our senior leadership team, our overall CMA team and our incredible engaged members all really aligned around the shared vision of what the CMA could become. 00:04:37:21 - 00:04:57:16 Alison And I think back to my first 100 days, at the end of which I had led the creation of CMA's Refined Value Equation, and everyone played a really important role in this, which helped set up the direction for the coming months and the years, and ultimately for the transformation that we've driven together. The board strategic guidance has been absolutely invaluable. 00:04:57:18 - 00:05:19:15 Alison You and the Board didn't just support bold initiatives, you really helped shape them. And since I joined, the Board has been so actively involved alongside our team and our membership. So together, we've really challenge ourselves to think bigger, to create something that could truly serve the profession. And that's led to many great initiatives and our ability to really step up and help future-proof marketers in our profession. 00:05:19:15 - 00:05:41:08 Alison And you highlighted some of the big wins that we've had together. And I think we should be incredibly proud that our member scores 87% for how the CMA is future-proofing marketing. When I step back and think about what I'm most proud of, it really comes down to the fact that we've got all of these incredibly involved members like you, and they really are the real heroes in the transformation. 00:05:41:09 - 00:06:04:05 Alison We have hundreds of senior marketers who are contributing through our Councils and Committees. They're coming together to debate and to learn. They're creating thought leadership that's shaping marketing, supporting our government advocacy and developing the content that really educates our profession and our community. And then we also have an amazing group of rising star marketers from across our membership with our new CMA Aim Advisory board. 00:06:04:07 - 00:06:25:01 Alison And they're really ensuring that we're building strong relevance and engagement for junior members and the future CMOs of the CMA. Plus, we've significantly grown our Chartered Marketer community, I'm super proud of that. And they're all really actively engaged. And those are just a few examples of how it's our overall community really coming together and collaborating that has made us so successful. 00:06:25:06 - 00:06:40:15 Alison And the journey certainly has taught us that CMA's greatest asset isn't our programs or advocacy. It really is the passionate community of marketers who actively engage, volunteer their time and share their expertise to really help advance our profession. 00:06:40:17 - 00:07:02:22 Alan That's great. And I know in previous podcasts you love to ask some of your guests questions about their leadership philosophy. You know, your approach to future-proofing the profession has been remarkable the last few years, and I could go on and on with many different things you've led, whether it's mentoring programs, AI resources, getting more value as part of your membership fees, council structure, the awards programs. 00:07:03:00 - 00:07:08:05 Alan I could go on and on, but my key question is, what's your philosophy on building that kind of sustainable transformation? 00:07:08:09 - 00:07:31:12 Alison Oh, you're making me blush. The real insight is it's not me. It's all of us together. And my philosophy really centres on leveraging collective brilliance. The most sustainable transformation can only happen when you're really inclusive in your approach, and you really look for ways to unlock the expertise that already exists within our community. And Alan, you and the Board are absolutely invaluable partners in this approach. 00:07:31:14 - 00:07:51:16 Alison You didn't just provide governance, you provided really great strategic insight that helped elevate our approach and certainly elevated our initiatives. And when we designed the Digital Marketing Skills Canada program, when we brought to life for the first time ever, CMA Marketing Week, Board members shared

    27 min

  5. JAN 30

    EP61 - How Team Canada Revolutionized Athlete Partnerships with Jacqueline Ryan

    What could you accomplish if an entire country was cheering for you? Building on Team Canada's 27-medal Paris success, Alison Simpson, President and CEO of the Canadian Marketing Association, speaks with Jacqueline Ryan, Chief Brand and Commercial Officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee and CEO of the Canadian Olympic Foundation. This episode celebrates Team Canada athletes stories of resilience, perseverance, and excellence on the road to Milano Cortina 2026, and the importance of Marketing Partnership support on that journey. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:22:20 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:22:22 - 00:00:46:16 Alison Canada is definitely having a sporty moment. From the Blue Jays extraordinary World Series run and women's rugby reaching the World Cup, to the Four Nations Cup victory and historic Olympic performances in Paris, Canadian athletes are capturing hearts and inspiring national pride like never before. There's truly no better time for this momentum as we head into the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. 00:00:46:18 - 00:01:25:14 Alison For today's episode, I am thrilled to welcome back Jacquie Ryan, Chief Brand and Commercial Officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee and CEO of the Canadian Olympic Foundation. Since joining the COC in 2019, Jacquie has transformed Canada's engagement with the Olympic Movement, including earning recognition as the Canadian Marketing Association's Marketer of the year in 2024 for her exceptional work during the Paris Olympics. Jacquie's leadership during Paris 2024 set new standards for Olympic marketing success, with the Brave is Unbeatable campaign significantly increasing positive feelings towards Team Canada.  00:01:25:14 - 00:01:51:20 Alison Under her guidance, Canada Olympic House opened to the public for the first time during a Summer Olympics, attracting 17,000 visitors in Paris, while Team Canada Fan Fest events back home drew 50,000 visitors across the country. With over 25 years of experience, including RBC, where Jacquie helped drive marketing strategy for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and Scotiabank, where she secured the 800 million naming rights deal for Scotiabank Arena, 00:01:52:01 - 00:02:15:19 Alison Jacquie brings exceptional expertise in sports marketing. As Canada approaches the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics with such strong momentum, amazing marketing partners and a nation ready and keen to rally behind our athletes, there's never been a more exciting time to be part of Team Canada. Welcome, Jacquie. It is an absolute pleasure to have you back to CMA Connect leading up to the Olympics. 00:02:15:21 - 00:02:20:10 Jacquie Thank you, Alison, and thanks for the opportunity to join you here today. And really a great pleasure to be back. 00:02:20:16 - 00:02:36:14 Alison So I'd love to start by looking back at Paris. The 2024 Olympics really did set new benchmarks across the board, from medal count to sponsorships and to national engagement. So what were the key learnings from Paris that have shaped your approach for Milano Cortina 2026? 00:02:36:20 - 00:03:00:13 Jacquie Well, thanks for asking, Alison. Paris was, it was incredible. It was, the first normal games since we returned from Covid, because we had the two Covid games, Tokyo and Beijing. So a lot of expectations were high for Paris, for everyone, for fans, families, athletes, marketing partners or donors. And the games literally delivered across all expectations in the entire spectrum. 00:03:00:15 - 00:03:25:10 Jacquie Team Canada won 27 medals in Paris. It's the second best result for Team Canada ever at a Summer games. Like eight golds, six silver, 11 bronze and three Olympic records. So we're super proud of the team. They really, really showed up well. And on top of that, over 70% of Canadians tuned in and they engaged with Team Canada, whether it be through our social channels, through CBC or Radio-Canada in Quebec. 00:03:25:12 - 00:03:50:03 Jacquie So the games in Paris, they really raised the bar in many meaningful ways, and so many lessons that are directly shaping how we're approaching Milano Cortina now, in 2026. So the first thing it did really reinforced our belief that nothing really brings people together quite like sport. Olympics are an incredible, unifying platform that really allows us all to put our differences aside. 00:03:50:05 - 00:04:21:12 Jacquie Secondly, it just reminded us the power of athlete for storytelling. So fans engaged most deeply when they could see the people behind the podiums. They could see their journeys, their resilience. The community roots through moments of humanity, the whole experience leading up to and including the games. So we'll continue to prioritize these athlete narratives, being really, really authentic in the storytelling from their voice, and keep Canadians connected with these athletes and learning about Team Canada athletes well before the opening ceremony. 00:04:21:12 - 00:04:45:14 Jacquie So when they arrive at the games, Canadians are really well poised to really understand the journey and know our athletes. And then our Brave is Unbeatable, our marketing campaign was a big success. We built a lot of equity in this platform through Paris and so working with The Hive, we decided to use it again, basically as a springboard to drive engagement with Canadians heading in now to the Cortina games. 00:04:45:16 - 00:05:07:10 Jacquie The platform, as you'll recall, really leans into the idea of Canadians seeing themselves in the athletes. These athletes are competing. They're on the global stage representing Canada, but they're still human. They have our similar struggles, they go through all sorts of things in their journey, and all of that can lend itself both as inspiration for all of us, and connection so that we feel connected to the athletes. 00:05:07:10 - 00:05:41:04 Jacquie So creatively, we've expanded this iteration of storytelling across far more athletes, representing the real vast diversity of Team Canada athletes from across Canada, sharing their stories, of course, strategically across different placements and channels and in different ways. So that's definitely something that was a big success and we're building on. Another is that Paris really demonstrated that what it looks like when marketing partnerships are truly integrated. Not just visible. They become part of the fan experience, part of the Canadian experience with these athletes and part of the athlete support system. 00:05:41:06 - 00:06:16:10 Jacquie So for Milano now, we've built collaborative, values-aligned marketing partnerships that contribute directly to performance, athlete well-being, fan engagement, rather than simply sponsorship presence. So, I mean, we've known this for years, but it really came together well for Paris, and wait until you see the marketing partner campaigns for Milano Cortina. And then finally, Paris really showed us that major games like the Olympic Games can be platforms for purpose, from sustainability to inclusion to national pride. 00:06:16:12 - 00:06:29:22 Jacquie That lands really guides how we tell our story, how we support our athletes, how partners activate, and all of this helps bring Canadians together, and so we really look forward to all of that coming together in a few short weeks as we head into Milano Cortina. 00:06:30:00 - 00:07:06:00 Alison That's outstanding, Jacquie, thanks so much. I love that you're prioritizing the athlete content and bringing to life their whole selves. It's so inspiring to see the exceptional athletic conditioning and expertise that they bring, but it can sometimes be hard for us mere mortals to relate to. So understanding some of the real life challenges that they're facing, and seeing their 360-view of their lives helps us dream even more about how we can be inspired by them, both athletically and just from sheer perseverance and grit and determination. 00:07:06:00 - 00:07:27:22 Alison So I love that. And the marketing partnerships, I'm looking forward to drilling into that a little bit more. You've built an impressive roster of 39 marketing partners for Milano Cortina, so I'd love you to share how some of your longest standing partners, like RBC, are activating differently this time, and what new partners are bringing to the table that hasn't existed before. 00:07:28:00 - 00:07:51:06 Jacquie Thank you for the question. You could well imagine we're very proud of the 39 marketing partners who are helping power Team Canada toward Milano Cortina. What's exciting is both how long-standing partners and new partners are evolving, what partnership really means, as I referenced earlier. You know, essentially our marketing partners will look at their partnership with us as a way to do a few things. 00:07:51:07 - 00:08:18:09 Jacquie One, they want to support Team Canada directly. They want to celebrate the athletes. They want to tell the athletes stories. They want to engage Canadians. They want engage fans from coast to coast to coast. And really importantly, just as importantly, they really want to help leave a legacy, a lasting legacy of inspiration for the next generation. And I think those four components really drive a lot of what our marketing partners are up to in their campaigns leading up to Milano Cortina. 00:08:18:11 - 00:08:41:15 Jacquie I think you know this, but I'll just remind you that the Canadian Olympic Committee is a not for profit organization. And I mention that because we're almost exclusively privately funded by our marketing partners. So Team Canada quite literally could not get to the Games without our marketing partners. They're literally the engine b

    33 min

  6. JAN 14

    EP60 - How Positive Platforms Boost Sales with Jenna Landi

    Interested in boosting your sales by 24%? Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, sits down with Jenna Landi, Director of Global Brand Research at Pinterest, to explore how positive environments drive measurable business results, with advertising showing 94% more impact on purchase intent. Jenna reveals why brands don't have to choose between positivity and performance. She introduces 'ambient chaos' as the driver of consumer shifts, shares Pinterest's 88% trend-forecasting accuracy, and reveals that Canadian Gen Z over-indexes certain trends at 5.5 times the global rate. Plus insights on AI, visual search, and building safer digital spaces, with actionable strategies for authentic brand connections. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:23:17 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:23:19 - 00:00:53:01 Alison When we're surrounded by an increasingly divisive and negative cultural landscape, finding authentic positivity can actually feel revolutionary. And it turns out it's can also be incredibly good for business, as marketers are grappling with building genuine connections in a digital world. Research from Pinterest proves that positive environments don't just feel better. They deliver measurable business results. For today's episode, I'm thrilled to welcome Jenna Landy, the Director of Global Brand Research of Pinterest. 00:00:53:03 - 00:01:34:07 Alison Jenna leads Pinterest's marketing research organization, leveraging the platform's unique Taste Graph technology to really understand how users discover, engage with, and act on inspiration. Her groundbreaking research on positivity and advertising has shown that campaigns infused with positive content can deliver up to 24% increases in sales. Definitely proof that doing good and doing well are not mutually exclusive. With the Master of Science of Behavioural Science from the London School of Economics and extensive experience at Nielsen and Google, where she was a founding member of the Human Truth Team, Jenna brings both academic rigour and practical marketing expertise to understanding consumer behaviour. 00:01:34:09 - 00:01:57:15 Alison At Pinterest, she is on the forefront of identifying shifting consumer behaviours, including what her team calls the ambient chaos of our current world. What a great description, as well as its impact on everything from design preferences to purchase decisions. Her work spans AI integration, visual search, innovation, and the critical mission of building a safer, more inspirational internet. Welcome, Jenna. 00:01:57:15 - 00:02:01:05 Alison It is an absolute pleasure to have you join us today on CMA connect. 00:02:01:06 - 00:02:08:09 Jenna Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me Alison. I'm so happy to be here and thank you for that really kind intro. This is exciting. 00:02:08:11 - 00:02:19:01 Alison I'm excited as well. So Jenna, I'd love you to start with your journey into marketing and research and really help our listeners understand what drew you to specialize in understanding consumer behaviour? 00:02:19:03 - 00:02:44:10 Jenna Absolutely. I was that annoying kid who never stopped asking questions. And I realized in university that I actually may be able to turn it into a career. So through roles in brand strategy, media buying, digital analytics, and deep global consumer insight, work, I've always been drawn to data and digital data in particular, and just how it offers a really unique window into consumer behaviour. 00:02:44:12 - 00:03:06:01 Jenna I joined Pinterest almost eight years ago now because our data, I believe, is the most unique in the industry. We have signals around both interest and intent. So searches and saves. And so myself and my team, we have this really unique sandbox to explore consumer behaviour from many different angles. And it's always also fun when you can live your work. 00:03:06:05 - 00:03:13:19 Jenna I am a peer myself, and I really appreciate and value the inspiration and creativity that it brings to my life. 00:03:13:21 - 00:03:24:19 Alison Curiosity for me is such an important priority for anyone to succeed in a marketing career. And you've also given hope to all the parents that are listening with those super inquisitive kids at home that it right off. 00:03:24:21 - 00:03:36:00 Jenna Oh, totally. I have two young girls myself, and I definitely am living some karma of kids that are extremely inquisitive. So hang on with them. Maybe it'll pay off later. 00:03:36:02 - 00:03:55:10 Alison And it will definitely pay off. So as a glass half full person myself, I am very intrigued by your research on positivity in advertising, especially into what can be a very divisive cultural landscape. You found that positive environments drive tangible business results. So I'd love you to share some of those findings. And what surprised you most about the research? 00:03:55:12 - 00:04:18:20 Jenna Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that we were really hoping to find and really relieved and excited to find is that, you know, validating our gut, which is that advertising on brand safe and positive platforms isn't just safer, but it can be profitable. It can be good for business. And what we found is even goes beyond that, which is that users are more engaged with ads when they appear in positive spaces. 00:04:18:21 - 00:04:41:10 Jenna So we partnered with Magna, and their research showed us that ads in positive environments truly do perform better. So we looked at the impact of brand safety on metrics like engagement, trustworthiness, intent, and even results to demonstrate that brands don't really have to choose between positivity and performance. I think you said earlier, you know, too often this feels like a trade off. 00:04:41:10 - 00:05:08:15 Jenna And we were so excited in this research to really validate that that's not the case in these, that positive platforms are 94% more impactful in driving purchase intent. And so we talk a lot about brand safety. We've spoken about brand safety for years, but we hadn't yet put numbers behind the business impact. And so these results show that safe and positive platforms aren't just preferred by users, but they also perform for advertisers. 00:05:08:16 - 00:05:36:14 Jenna So in my simulations, the same creative, same finite budget generated up to 24% more sales when brands incorporated view-ability and positivity into their media buying strategies. So that real alchemy of both view-ability and positivity. And so we understand that advertisers are all seeking a competitive edge in today's marketplace. And we really believe that this research represents a fresh opportunity of where to find it. 00:05:36:14 - 00:05:48:17 Jenna So if I can ask listeners today to consider one thing, it would be really consider and evaluate how the platforms you're partnering with offer that positive space and offer that potential for competitive edge. 00:05:48:19 - 00:06:06:09 Alison That is a very compelling case for why positivity is absolutely the right approach, and clearly it's a great advantage from a Pinterest perspective. I also hope that other platforms are hearing and seeing the data and evolving as well would make the world certainly a better and more open place for sure. 00:06:06:11 - 00:06:15:22 Jenna So I would love that as an outcome of this research, please. Yes, an industry call to action to make the internet altogether a more safe and wellbeing supportive environment. 00:06:16:00 - 00:06:32:14 Alison So Jenny, your team's been studying what you call the ambient chaos, which is a term I absolutely love, and certainly our current world is experiencing that and how consumer behaviour are shifting as a result. Can you explain the concept and share some of the trends that you're seeing emerge from this research? 00:06:32:16 - 00:07:15:10 Jenna Yeah, absolutely. We kicked off this research to really understand the why behind some of the trends that we're calling. And Pinterest predicts this year, which I'm excited to get into in a little bit. But ambient chaos is a term my team coined to describe that constant background noise of uncertainty, divisiveness, and negativity that surrounds us today. And so one of my amazing colleagues talked about it as the emotional weather that we're all living in and an ongoing basis, there's just this constant level of low level stress and fragmentation that has become the backdrop of daily life, and it's really fundamentally changing how consumers behave, what they seek out, how they express themselves and so when 00:07:15:10 - 00:07:41:23 Jenna we mapped that into our trends, what we found is that one of the most fascinating shifts is this movement away from stark minimalism towards bold maximalism. As we detected in our trends this year, as people are seeking out new ways of self-expression and really grounding in their interests and passions. And so, you know, for years we've been told that clean, simple, minimal design was the pinnacle of sophistication. 00:07:41:23 - 00:08:05:15 Jenna But consumers are really now gravitating towards more of that authentic self-expression that represents who they are. And we're seeing this everywhere from home decor that's rich with colour and pattern to fashion choices that really make some bold statements rather than blend in. I think it's beautiful that people are saying, I'm here, I matter, and I'm not going to disappear into the background. 00:08:05:15 - 00:08:19:16 Jenna And so for marketers, the key takeaway is that consumers want to stand out and that they're seeking brands and experiences that help them vocalize and represent their truest selves versus, you know, not not w

    28 min

  7. 2025-12-16

    EP59 - AI Adoption: Why Canada's Falling Behind with Sabrina Geremia

    Why isn't Canada a leader in AI adoption? Sabrina Geremia, Vice President & Country Managing Director at Google Canada, tells Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, that Canada was a leader in AI creation but is falling behind in adoption. With only 26% of Canadian organizations having adopted Generative AI, despite the potential to save workers 170 hours annually, Google suggests empowering people, accelerating AI value creation, and contributing to the Canadian national ecosystem. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:23:12 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host CMA CEO, Alison Simpson. 00:00:23:14 - 00:00:27:21 Alison The artificial intelligence revolution isn't just changing how we work. It's redefining what's possible for Canadian businesses and the economy as a whole. There are many benefits, but also risks associated with that are super important to understand. As AI continues to innovate at breakneck speed, the question really becomes how can Canadian marketers and businesses harness these advances to drive growth and close our productivity gap in ethical and responsible ways? For today's episode, I'm pleased to welcome Sabrina Geremia, VP and Country Manager for Google Canada. 00:00:54:10 - 00:01:25:21 Alison Sabrina will be celebrating her 20th anniversary with Google in May and next year Google is actually celebrating their 25th anniversary in Canada as well. Sabrina has led Google Canada's strategic direction and advertising business since 2017, focusing on fostering Canada's digital economy by assisting businesses in growth, supporting the tech sector and enhancing digital skills among Canadians. With over 25 years of experience spanning marketing, public relations, sales and general management, Sabrina brings a unique perspective to the intersection of technology and business transformation. 00:01:26:02 - 00:01:48:19 Alison Her journey actually began in consumer packaged goods before making a strategic pivot to technology during the early dot-com era. At Google she has held various leadership positions, including managing director of Integrated Solutions, building her expertise as a trusted advisor to Canada's C-suite. She's been recognized as one of Canada's Top 100 Most Powerful Women and the recipient of the Women in Communication Technology Women of the Year Award. 00:01:49:01 - 00:02:11:00 Alison Sabrina is deeply committed to advancing digital skills and innovation in Canada. Her experience really positions her uniquely to speak about AI's potentially transformative impact on marketing, as well as Canada's productivity challenges and the evolution of digital advertising in an increasingly AI-driven landscape. Welcome, Sabrina. It is an absolute pleasure to have you join us today, and I'm looking forward to a terrific conversation. 00:02:11:05 - 00:02:13:06 Sabrina Hi, Alison, it's so great to be here. 00:02:13:08 - 00:02:30:23 Alison So I'd like to kick things off by hearing a bit about your career. So as I mentioned, you started your career in consumer packaged goods with P&G, and then you pivoted and have spent the majority in tech, including your upcoming 20th anniversary with Google. What inspired you to change industries fairly early in your career and what's kept you in tech? 00:02:31:01 - 00:02:55:22 Sabrina Yeah, well, it's so great to be here and I love spending time with the CMA. You know, especially as a former board member, I know that the work that you do is so valuable and important to Canada. So thank you for that. Yeah, my career has been an interesting one. I have actually lived through the three arcs of technology. So I have been working for close to three decades, and I've kind of gone from no internet to the internet, from internet to mobile, 00:02:55:22 - 00:03:18:21 Sabrina and now this just enormous and transformative AI moment. And so pre-internet, I mean, I am Canadian, I grew up in Guelph, just outside of Toronto, and I went to Laurier, for university, and I did my last year in Italy as an exchange student. And from there I worked at Procter and Gamble. And when I worked at Procter and Gamble, it was really underlying what you know very well, Alison. 00:03:18:21 - 00:03:38:21 Sabrina Just like the importance of marketing and how important the foundation fundamentals of marketing are. So I worked there for about five years. I worked across cosmetics and some of their laundry business all across Italy. But I had friends who were in the Valley, and I saw the internet coming, and I knew that it was coming. And I just, you know, knew it was going to be very transformative. 00:03:38:21 - 00:03:58:01 Sabrina I remember one day driving past the Colosseum and just reflecting on like, wow, like that amazing moment when all of this new technology and these new advancements were happening in Rome. I want to be part of that. So I left my job and I did what, you know, many people do. I took a year to kind of move around. 00:03:58:01 - 00:04:16:16 Sabrina I did a lot of nonprofit work. I did a lot of volunteer work. I went to Asia. I did some work with the UN on what the internet could mean for the digital divide. And this was all, again, just at the emergence of the internet. And then I went and landed at Ask Jeeves and after that, Reckitt Benckiser and really learned the foundations of the internet. 00:04:16:16 - 00:04:39:22 Sabrina And I was working in London and globally at that time. And then from there, Google found me, and I started working at Google in 2006, in London, in the UK, and I helped them set up like our whole consumer packaged goods practice on how were we going to work with CPG companies like Reckitt, like P&G, the largest advertisers in the world, and help them shift and transition to this internet future? 00:04:40:00 - 00:04:55:15 Sabrina So a little while later, I came back to Canada and was so happy to come back. And during my time and, you know, working all the aisles of the grocery store in Canada, that was the big shift to mobile. And the shift to mobile was big. Like, no one believed that you would ever buy a pair of running shoes on a mobile phone. 00:04:55:19 - 00:05:13:05 Sabrina And yet we know today people buy cars on mobile phone. They do all sorts of things on their mobile. The form factor had changed. And so, you know, fast forward to today. It's the third shift. It's a really big one. It's very transformative. We've done it before. We're going to do it again. And you know what inspires me really 00:05:13:06 - 00:05:36:19 Sabrina you know, to stay in tech, and I've been in tech like, you know, we said for over 20 years and even more, if you count my experience before Google, is that really it's our mission. Like our mission at Google in this moment is really on helpfulness, and it's making AI helpful for everybody. And in Canada, what inspires me is our shared mission as a team to help make Canada a global leader in AI in the value creation phase. 00:05:36:19 - 00:06:04:10 Sabrina We've been such leaders in the creation of the tech. I want us to be leaders in the adoption and value creation. And this really means empowering our people, it means accelerating AI value creation with all of the amazing partners that you work with every day, and also contributing to the national ecosystem in Canada, and and it really is important to get this right in Canada, because while we were leaders in the creation of AI, we're starting to fall behind in the adoption phase. 00:06:04:12 - 00:06:25:15 Alison I love your career story and the fact that you actually started internationally, spent a number of years. I also love that you've demonstrated great bravery as you decided I want to try something different. Most people would find another job and grow that way, and you took a bet on yourself that clearly paid off and led to some fascinating experiences, including work with the UN, and ultimately brought you to tech. 00:06:25:15 - 00:06:46:18 Alison So lesson number one for our listeners is that willingness to bet on yourself and take some measured risks throughout your career can be an amazing accelerator. So AI is certainly shaping the future across industries. From your perspective as head of Google at Canada, what do you see as the biggest opportunities that AI presents for businesses and the economy in Canada right now? 00:06:47:00 - 00:07:10:14 Sabrina That is a really important question, Alison, and probably one that I think about every day. We talked earlier about being so ahead in the primary research. If you think about many of the AI greats who contributed to this technology, a lot of them were here and a lot of them are here today. And, you know, we have a lot of great primary researchers and a lot of engineers and technological strength in the AI fields. 00:07:10:16 - 00:07:33:12 Sabrina But some of the latest reports are showing that we're lagging in the adoption of AI right now as an economy. So there was a Deloitte report out recently that only 26% of Canadian organizations have adopted AI, and that's about, you know, ten points lower than other companies in a global peer set. So this idea here that we created it, but we're not moving fast enough to adopt it. 00:07:33:14 - 00:07:57:09 Sabrina What's at stake is productivity and opportunity. And you know, the valuation of this is around 230 billion in economic impact for Canada. So that's eight points of GDP. It could save the average worker three and a half weeks per year, 170 hours per year of work. And that's kind of lower value tasks that then you can kind of uplevel and do different things and do them more effectively. 00:07:57:09 - 00:08:17:09 Sabrina So I think really about having Canadians being able to use the tool

    32 min

  8. 2025-12-03

    EP58 - Why All Marketing is Performance Driven with Lauren Bradeen

    Isn't all marketing performance driven? Lauren Bradeen, CMO and Partner at Deloitte, challenges the traditional brand-versus-performance debate in her conversation with Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA. When Lauren stepped into the CMO role, she was driven to evolve the B2B marketing industry playbook. Now she's leading a transformation to help B2B marketers build marketing teams that are confident in the value they bring, rather than constantly justifying every dollar. Plus, Lauren shares why being a 'capability collector' is the secret to career advancement. 00:00:01:18 - 00:00:23:09 Presenter Welcome to CMA Connect Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host CMA CEO Alison Simpson. 00:00:23:11 - 00:00:47:22 Alison I'm very happy to welcome Lauren Bradeen, Chief Marketing Officer and Partner at Deloitte Canada, for today's episode. Lauren is leading a comprehensive marketing transformation that's redefining how one of the world's premier professional services firms is approaching the integration of brand and performance marketing. Her expertise and strategic thinking have been showcased in industry publications, where she's contributed insights on the evolving challenges facing modern marketers. 00:00:48:00 - 00:01:10:06 Alison Lauren's also been actively engaged in developing the next generation of marketing talent, recently participating as a guest speaker at our CMA NXT Marketing Careers Night, and she was also a judge for this year's CMA Awards. What sets Lauren apart is her journey from in the business into marketing leadership. She really understands how Deloitte works with clients, the processes behind it, and how to speak the language of the business. 00:01:10:08 - 00:01:33:06 Alison Currently, she's leading Deloitte Marketing through what she calls the messy middle, an important part of any transformation. And they're moving from an operational marketing function to a strategic brand and growth engine with their own targets and accountability, all while maintaining Deloitte's position as the number one brand globally in the category. With marketing leaders across industries grappling with the false choice between brand building and performance marketing, 00:01:33:07 - 00:01:46:02 Alison Lauren's approach can offer a roadmap for how these traditionally siloed functions really need to work together to drive real business success. Welcome, Lauren, I am absolutely thrilled to have you join us here today, and I'm looking forward to a terrific conversation. 00:01:46:04 - 00:01:48:04 Lauren Thank you. Alison. So am I. 00:01:48:06 - 00:01:59:04 Alison So let's get started with your story. When you stepped into the CMO role at Deloitte, what was it that resonated for you about that role and what were some of your early priorities? 00:01:59:06 - 00:02:20:08 Lauren So I would offer that my journey into the role might have been a little bit more unconventional, as I was actually offered the role while on maternity leave, and so that really provided me a bit of space without an existing mandate to be focused on, to really think about the opportunity. And there were three things that surfaced for me. 00:02:20:10 - 00:02:42:12 Lauren The first was to drive a greater impact for the firm. And so this role supports all of our businesses and all of our industries. And so within that, I have the opportunity to actually learn from and work with leaders across operate and consulting services and tax and legal, ER and I G.P.S. And so that was really, really interesting for me. 00:02:42:14 - 00:03:14:23 Lauren The second was I had felt like the B2B playbook had not made as much progress over the last decade. And so I was excited about this opportunity for an industry that felt pretty ripe for transformation. And then the third piece was, what an honour. And so when they offered me the role, I felt like from a personal career perspective, the growth, the leadership opportunity to work with this large, incredible team, it just felt like something that I absolutely couldn't turn down. 00:03:15:01 - 00:03:38:13 Lauren And so being on maternity leave, that also gave me a bit of space in a different way to think about what I wanted to do before I actually started the role. And so as I stepped into the role, the immediate priorities I had gone in with a bit of like blue sky unconstrained strategy, what were all the things that I would have loved when I was in the business? 00:03:38:15 - 00:03:57:18 Lauren And then once I started the role and did my listening tour, in that first month, I was really able to validate, invalidate, gain new ideas from the team, hear all the things that they had always wanted to do, but maybe felt like they couldn't. And so right off the bat, the focus was just getting the strategy set. 00:03:57:19 - 00:04:15:07 Lauren I started in Q2 as well for Deloitte, and so I felt like if I waited too long, it could actually be a bit more disruptive. And so we got that strategy in place, shared out this strategy so that everybody on the team felt part of and very clear on, what was our mission and what were we rallying around. 00:04:15:08 - 00:04:36:03 Lauren And then the immediate priorities were around the areas that needed the most modernization in order to deliver on that strategy. And so we set up what we called task forces. There was about six of them, they're like mini consulting projects around things like digital transformation and KPIs and measurement. There were a few new capabilities we wanted to stand on, like our content studio. 00:04:36:05 - 00:04:40:06 Lauren And so those were the immediate priorities that we took on once I stepped into the role. 00:04:40:08 - 00:04:52:13 Alison I absolutely love that Deloitte gave you the promotion when you were on mat leave. That speaks so incredibly well of the culture, and the signal that that would have sent across the organization is incredibly powerful. 00:04:52:15 - 00:05:10:03 Lauren I will reinforce that. I felt incredibly honoured and also very proud of Deloitte for giving me that opportunity while on maternity leave. I also asked my leader, like, do you think this is something that I can do as a new mom? And she was like, I think you can do this because you're a new mom. Like the the perspective you'll bring. 00:05:10:03 - 00:05:15:13 Lauren And so that was definitely a very proud moment for me, for the firm. 00:05:15:15 - 00:05:45:02 Alison That's amazing. Now, one of the big themes in marketing today is the ongoing tension between brand marketing and performance marketing. It is so often treated as an "either or" instead of an "and" relationship. So with that as a backdrop, I know you're leading a significant transformation at Deloitte around performance marketing. I'd love you to share your approach to structuring and changing marketing within the organization to be more performance driven, acknowledging that the brand part is an important part of driving that performance as well. 00:05:45:03 - 00:06:08:04 Lauren So first and foremost, I've never loved the term performance marketing. I can appreciate that what felt like quite suddenly, marketers could track a sale and attribute a dollar to the marketing spend. It was very exciting. But I actually think we did a disservice by categorizing a part of marketing as performance, because then what is everything else in service of? 00:06:08:06 - 00:06:32:00 Lauren And so I feel like the pendulum swung now back to needing a more balanced approach. And that's absolutely how we are embracing it. And so we call it "from brand to demand". And all marketing is performance driven. But it's in service of different KPIs. And so in terms of how we're thinking about performance marketing holistically, and you need that KPI framework. 00:06:32:00 - 00:07:03:01 Lauren So we have quantifiable KPIs across brand, eminence consideration and growth. And we work in service of that KPI framework. The next thing I'd say, that we have done, again, in service of this broader performance marketing definition, is being a little bit less binary around how we look at spend. And so I think even when performance marketing started being talked about, you'd say, okay, well, we need to invest this percentage of our budget on performance marketing and then this percentage on everything else. 00:07:03:03 - 00:07:27:07 Lauren Whereas the percentage splits or the way in which you flex your budget is very dependent on what you are marketing and the challenges that you're facing. We know that through things like media mixed modelling and different incrementality and approaches, you're going to learn what the right budget split at a given time is. But I do think we need to be more fluid in our approaches to budget and spending. 00:07:27:12 - 00:07:58:01 Lauren And so we're really thinking about, what are the needs of our business, what are the needs of our client, and what does that mean from a spend split perspective? In the same way that you wouldn't look at the cost to acquire every segment the same. And so I think that comes back to everything needing to be in service of that KPI framework, because if you're only looking at something like the cost per acquisition, you're going to miss out on more flexible budgeting and spend split strategy, which would actually be in service of more growth. 00:07:58:03 - 00:08:22:12 Lauren And then the last thing I'd offer is just the short term - long term balance. We're very lucky because Deloitte is a very client centric business, and we don't have the pressures of maybe a tech company or a consumer company where they have targets every week to meet on sales. Just by nature of the velocity of our sales cycle, we are more of a longer term bus

    34 min
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Welcome to CMA Connect - the voice of the Canadian marketing community. Join us for empowering discussions with industry leaders about the rapidly changing world of marketing.

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  • Creator
    Canadian Marketing Association
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    97
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    Clean
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    CMA Connect

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