I’m excited to join a new advertising agency – DraftFCB as their Planning Director in Digital effective August 13th 2012.

Why move?

Whereas it was true that I was very much enjoying my clients and our work together at my former employer, JWT Canada – I’ve been interested in the opportunity we have in integrating digital, and in particular, social media, better with communications or innovative efforts.  Admittedly, this is difficult when media, search, PR, customer service, etc are owned by different players and served by different agencies.  I felt I was making terrific progress  – certainly, on the Mazda business, we were constantly optimizing and integrating marketing efforts on a completely new level.  Still – multiple P&Ls made efforts more complicated.

Michael Szego, VP of Integrated Planning and my new boss at DraftFCB spoke to me about the value of having the whole global agency operate under a single P&L.  This isn’t just a financial arrangement but a philosophy and operating model that supports true integration.  Perhaps it is this integration philosophy that has played out in the floorplan..  at DraftFCB’s Toronto offices – my new desk in a swank open concept office – is across from the media guy, kitty corner to a strategist and behind a creative director.  And, might I add, just down the hall from the killer in-house cafe serving really good lattes for $2.75.  Now wasn’t that just the tipping point?

I am looking forward to working with some strategy heavyweights, to some pretty ambitious agency goals and earn the honour of working with a new set of clients – who I trust and hope will be as awesome as my past clients.