Antitrust and Ad-Tech Regulation in Canada: What CMOs Need to Know Now
Canada’s Competition Bureau is no longer just monitoring false claims in advertising—it’s challenging the infrastructure that underpins how digital media is bought and sold. The lawsuit against Google’s DoubleClick/AdX signals a turning point: auctions may be reshaped, hidden fees exposed, and access to premium inventory broadened.
For Canadian CMOs, the implications are immediate. Vendor portfolios that once leaned heavily on walled gardens will need diversification. First-party data strategies must be reinforced to withstand both privacy regulation and competitive pressure. And measurement frameworks will need to evolve beyond last-click to hybrid models that balance accountability with compliance.
This isn’t just about avoiding risk. As recent case studies show, marketers who diversify their ad-tech stack can unlock lower CPMs, better transparency, and stronger bargaining power. In other words: regulatory scrutiny can become a catalyst for performance gains—if leaders act now.
Why Strategic Brand Investment Matters Now More Than Ever
This year, global ad spending is expected to reach $1.16 trillion, with growth projected to accelerate to 6% in 2026. While these figures seem promising, the underlying narrative is more complicated, raising important questions for marketing leaders to consider. A Shifting Advertising Landscape The most significant takeaway is that just three companies, Alphabet, Meta, and […]
Navigating a Cookieless Future: The Big Picture Tools to Drive Marketing Success
For years, third-party cookies were the silent workhorses of digital marketing. They tracked user behavior across websites, stitched together complex customer journeys, and gave marketers a sense of control and clarity in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape. But those cookies? They’re crumbling. Thanks to tighter privacy regulations (hello GDPR and CCPA), browser restrictions (looking at […]
The Peanut Butter Pivot: How Digital Innovation Rewires Canada’s CPG Soul
Imagine Sarah, a thirty-something graphic designer, standing in a Loblaws aisle in Toronto in 2025. The fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting a sterile glow on her as she cradles a jar of peanut butter. It’s not just any jar—this one’s tariff-free, roasted from Canadian peanuts in a small Ontario plant, and it’s practically serenading her […]
When Worlds Collide: The Art of Strategic Collaboration
Enterprises and brands have traditionally focused on growth through sales and marketing optimization. While historically successful, businesses are now increasingly turning to partnerships to meet and exceed their growth goals. Why? The data shows that strategic collaborations are a transformative force that creates extraordinary value through synergy and unexpected cultural connections. When organizations with different […]
Think Smarter, Not Harder: How AI Redefines Marketing—5 Lessons for 2025
In 2025, artificial intelligence isn’t just a new tool in the marketer’s toolkit—it’s a total paradigm shift. AI has the power to take marketing beyond the limits of human capacity, uncovering insights we couldn’t see, crafting strategies we hadn’t considered, and executing ideas at a speed we couldn’t match. But here’s the paradox: while AI […]
Defining A Marketing Budget
Regardless of the size of your organization or the vertical that you operate in, a common question asked by many CMOs revolves around marketing investment and the optimal level of spending based on the size of the business. There are many variables that can have an impact on your budget, and there’s no right or wrong answer. We can, however, provide some strategic guidance in determining […]