Karine Courtemanche on the path to where the consumer is going to be

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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 holding conversations with leaders of Canada’s largest agencies on the fast-changing fundamentals. This week, Karine Courtemanche, EVP of Plus Company Canada and president of its media group (including agencies Cossette Media and Jungle Media), speaks to writer Rebecca Harris:

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How have the fundamentals of media planning and buying evolved in the last few years?

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(First), consumers’ journey — the way they buy and the way we can influence them to change their behaviours or trigger a purchase — has become more complex. There used to be a time when you could put a (commercial) on television and that would influence behaviour. People would believe what you said in the TV spot, go in store and purchase it. Those days are gone. Now, there are hundreds of millions of different journeys for every product that we work with. People will see billboards and TV spots… (then) search for you online, look for reviews (and) ask their friends for recommendations. So, the journey becomes extremely complex… But we also better understand the journeys because we have better tools and better data to work with.

The next big revolution is moving from understanding the data to predicting the data. We’re moving into predictive intelligence and knowing how (the journeys) are always changing for every (consumer). So, how is it going to change tomorrow? And when you start understanding the journeys, you realize it’s not only (about media placement)… The impact is also on the message and the creative and the way it is said. Using predictive data to predict future creative development or improvement to (a client’s) creative platform is the next big step for us.

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Finally, consumers have become way more polarized than they were in the past. There used to be a time where you could reach a broad audience with brand values that would unite all customers behind your products. That’s no longer the case… So, marketers now have to make tough decisions about which segment they (target) and be aligned with their values.

What are clients asking for these days and how has that shifted?

(One shift is) we’re seeing way more (media planning and buying) briefs than before. I remember you couldn’t take your summers off because that was when you’d be planning the year to come, the year after. That doesn’t exist. If you’re lucky, during the summer you’re planning fall. So, people are reacting to what’s happening in the world. People are reacting to what’s happening in the news. People are reacting to technology. Our clients are reacting to that. So, (there is a) shift from ‘here’s my new annual campaign’ to ‘we’re going to be working on 12 monthly campaigns altogether.’ That requires a smaller, more nimble team than just working on one big campaign a year.

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What has stayed the same in media planning and buying?

Love of consumers. We’ve been talking about consumers, consumer journeys, understanding what influences them… about technologies and platforms. But to me, they’re all means to understand what drives us as humans. So, the psychology part of it (has remained the same). We just have the means now to understand. What used to be a gut feeling has turned into a science. And that’s fascinating.

Can you share your predictions on where the industry is headed — and how your company is preparing for the future?

We just launched a new tool called Plus AIOS, (a predictive intelligence) tool that helps us understand the multiple (customer) journeys. What makes it so unique is when you create (behaviour models) and make predictions based on them… usually it takes millions of data touch points to be able to do it… Now, AI helps us do it with a fraction of the data points that we needed in the past to have access to this depth of knowledge.

AI applied to measurement and predictions of consumer behaviours, to us, is super fascinating. That is the future — to be able to look at different scenarios and (make) forecasts based on the data and the science. Right now, we’re doing it with a high accuracy rate for media. So, I can tell you if you’re going to be influenced by radio versus billboard versus social media. The next phase of that… is how we can use predictive intelligence to fuel creativity and innovation. So, how we can use that to give better briefs to our creative teams so they have confidence that if they recommend a spokesperson, there is going to be an incremental impact versus using pets in their ads. That sort of tool where we model consumer behaviours and make predictions will have a huge implication for creative development.

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For consumers, this sounds like when you see a relevant ad for a product you didn’t even know you needed — and you buy it.

Even I wonder sometimes as a consumer is it luck or was it all planned? An interesting point to make is that people have always had a kind of conflictual relationship with advertising. You would (watch) Super Bowl (ads) where it became entertainment, but most of the time, truly, it was an annoyance in your life. But when you are exposed to a (product) and it means something to you and it’s relevant for you, then all of a sudden there’s real use to it.

Read the rest of the series of conversations with leaders of Canada’s largest media agencies on where the business is going next:

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