Editors’ Note

Susanne Morello is a global brand, marketing and media executive with over 25 years’ experience in business-to-business and consumer sectors. Prior to joining Active International in 2013, Morello was the head of marketing and digital communications for Noble Corporation, the commercial division of RONA (Lowe’s). Throughout her career, Morello held various leadership roles across a mix of large industry leaders and fast-growing companies in North America and abroad, including OfficeMax/Grand & Toy, ADT Security Services, Inscape and Teknion Corporation.

Company Brief

Active International’s (activeinternational.com) purpose is to transform data into insights, strategy into action, and vision into value. With the entrepreneurial spirit of a startup, and the capabilities of a global corporation, Active continues to redefine what’s possible and turn possibilities into positive business outcomes. Active drives performance through industry expertise, its Corporate Trade Model, and portfolio of companies with a core competency in media, to create and deliver value for leading brands throughout their business life cycles.

Will you provide an overview of your role and key areas of focus?

I’ve had the pleasure of leading a highly-talented team at Active International Canada since 2013. As a member of the leadership team, I am responsible for setting the vision for the media organization in Canada and growing relationships with clients, partner agencies and national media vendors. Working in partnership with some of Canada’s most recognizable brands, my team manages all multi-platform media, trade investments, operations and vendor partnerships – ensuring best practices for media innovation in the use of both traditional and interactive channels. Building on our strengths in delivering media value through trade, our goal is to be the most customer-centric media solutions provider for our customers and our partners.

Will you highlight Active’s focus on innovation and use of both traditional and interactive channels?

Our innovation agenda is driven by our relentless focus on the customer experience, designing personal experiences that connect real people to each stage of a journey, leveraging the full media ecosystem. The powerful convergence of marketing and technology in today’s marketplace means brands are no longer built through advertising alone, but through experiences. Breakthrough and memorable experiences come to life when they reach consumers in a highly-relevant and hyper-targeted manner across all interactions – traditional and interactive. We consider customer data from both offline and online sources, audience preferences, and media habits to inform the right mix, weight and balance of traditional media with online media to deliver results. This approach combined with our innovative trade model – the option to pay for a portion of their media using their products and services unique to Active – offers customers unprecedented value.

How do you define the Active difference in regard to its media offerings and capabilities?

Active’s agile and entrepreneurial spirit is still very much alive in our culture today, rooted in a strong belief in partnership and connections. The Active difference lies within our ability to deliver full-service integrated media plans while also presenting clients the opportunity to tap into a smart corporate trade strategy to unlock cash flow, financial flexibility and incremental media value. We help brands achieve more with inventory trade-in solutions to partially fund media investments. Unlike traditional media agencies, we have the unique ability to work with various stakeholders including finance, supply chain and marketing within our client’s business, each benefiting from an Active relationship in a unique way.