Former IAB CEO Alice Manners has resurfaced at one of Perth's leading agencies, Marketforce.
The full-service shop, headed up by CEO John Driscoll, has been around for more than 40 years. It owns media agency OMD WA which most of its clients use. Marketforce itself, is part-owned by Clemenger BBDO.
Manners, who now takes a newly-created role of chief digital officer, stepped down as CEO of the IAB in May after leading the organisation for three years. She decided to leave the Sydney-based IAB at the end of her three-year term to spend more time in her home-state of Perth.
Speaking to AdNews, Driscoll says he is delighted to attract such top talent to WA.
He says the appointment is a major coup for Marketforce and represents a significant move to consolidate its media resources and data analytics with its highly regarded creative fire power.
Prior to her IAB job Manners held a number of roles with WPP Asia Pacific including GroupM Asia Pacific COO of interaction and managing director of mOne Asia Pacific.
Driscoll said the new role reflected a “maturing of Marketforce’s approach to its digital offering, and was in line with a worldwide trend to provide a “seamless integration of traditional and digital media planning, with strategic and consumer planning - all linked with campaign based creative solutions”.
“Clients today are faced with a barrage of marketing choices and often conflicting information provided from a multitude of sources” he said.
“Our role as an agency must be to make sense of those choices, using well-grounded research, data analytics and consumer media consumption habits to provide simple, fact-based single source solutions for our clients.”
Manners says Marketforce presents an exciting opportunity for her to combine her most recent experience at the IAB with her agency credentials, to address the evolving needs of today’s marketer.
“Marketforce’s commitment to a fully-integrated media, strategic and creative solution for clients and its ability to deliver on this commitment is impressive and the envy of many larger agencies across the globe who are struggling to re-connect these key elements of their service offering” Manners says.
At the IAB, Manners was replaced by Vijay Solanki, who was formerly head of digital at SCA.
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