media, marketing & effectiveness 2025
media, marketing & effectiveness 2025
This year’s Media, Marketing & Effectiveness event was filled with powerful insights and learnings.
Presentations are now available; videos are coming soon.
The Eye-watering Cost of Dull Media, Peter Field and Dr. Karen Nelson-Field
What’s the real cost of dull in media? When even great creative can’t beat the limits of a low-attention format, what are the fundamental shifts we all need to make in the way we think about media? In this captivating session, effectiveness guru Peter Field and attention expert Karen Nelson-Field share the latest findings from the groundbreaking Extraordinary Cost of Dull research project. They outline the financial impact of unseen media, and the steps we can take to improve attention and advertising effectiveness.
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Marketing as Investment: Making the Case to the C-Suite, Ian Whittaker
Respected media analyst Ian Whittaker reframes advertising not as a cost center, but as a strategic investment that drives long-term business value. Ian shares an overview of key current economic factors facing brands and offers marketers a practical framework for engaging executive leadership in meaningful conversations about marketing spend.
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Why Brands (Still) Matter, Simon Tunstill
Behavioural science has shown us that most of our actions are driven not by measured, rational thought, but by unconscious processes and mental shortcuts. We gravitate toward familiar products and are influenced by cognitive biases — and that’s what makes brands so valuable. In this insightful presentation, Simon Tunstill shares new research from Thinkbox that underscores the continued importance of brands, and the key role that advertising plays in embedding brands into our subconscious, keeping them top-of-mind.
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Marketing Effectiveness in Canada, Hilary Borndahl
Hilary Borndahl, Founder & CEO of Miix Analytics, shares key findings from an extensive analysis ($45 B in revenue) of Canadian businesses. Hilary’s research quantifies the value of marketing spend, the contribution different media makes, and highlights opportunities to maximize media spend in Canada.
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Canadian Media Means Business, Sarah Thompson
Sarah Thompson has been a long compelling advocate for the Canadian Media business. Here Sarah shares the results of the recent Nordicity report which outlines the value that the Media and Advertising sector brings to the Canadian economy — and all the reasons to continue to support it.
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Building an Ad Measurement Ecosystem in Canada, Sue Hass
Sue Haas, President and COO of NLogic, outlines the company’s Roadmap to building a full-scale ad measurement solution for the Canadian market.
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TV & Video Landscape, Catherine MacLeod
Catherine MacLeod, thinktv President and CEO, provides an overview of the Canadian media landscape, including some important level-setting (for example: TV continues to garner the largest share of the video pie — across all demos — and some important ways we’re different than the US market).
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speakers
PETER FIELD
marketing consultant + effectiveness expert
Peter spent 15 years as a strategic planner in advertising and has been a marketing consultant for the last 25 years. Effectiveness case study analysis underpins much of his work, which includes a number of well-known texts in partnership with Les Binet such as The Long & The Short of it, Effectiveness in Context, and The 5 Principles of Growth in B2B Marketing. In 2024, he helped kickstart the ‘cost of dull’ project to alert marketers to the downsides of dull creative and media choices. Peter has a global reputation as an effectiveness expert and speaks and consults on this topic regularly around the world.
DR. KAREN NELSON-FIELD
founder, Amplified
Dr. Karen Nelson-Field is a leading media science researcher who has revolutionised global media measurement. As an advisor to major media agencies and global brands, she is a sought-after speaker and author of bestsellers Viral Marketing: The Science of Sharing, The Attention Economy: How Media Works, and the groundbreaking The Attention Economy: A Category Blueprint.
Karen’s work has been featured in top publications, including The New York Times, Bloomberg Business, CNBC, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal. As the Founder of Amplified, Karen pioneers omnichannel attention measurement, providing cutting-edge solutions in attention collection, media planning, and in-flight measurement — helping the industry navigate the complexities of modern media.
IAN WHITTAKER
managing director & owner, Liberty Sky Advisors
Ian is an experienced, commercially-minded equities analyst with 20 years’ experience. He is widely recognized and highly-regarded for his industry knowledge across all parts of media, digital and tech. With a proven track record of identifying the latest trends, understanding industry dynamics and the implications for companies, Ian brings his financial and markets expertise together with his knowledge of the wider macroeconomic, political and societal trends to provide consultancy services to companies, at both a strategic and financial level. Ian is also a widely respected columnist and media commentator.
SIMON TUNSTILL
communications director, Thinkbox
Simon Tunstill is the Communications Director of Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK. He does what you’d expect a communications director to do, perhaps even more. He’s been with Thinkbox for almost 20 years and was part of the team that launched the organisation back in 2006. During that time, he’s helped Thinkbox establish itself as an influential voice in advertising, winning numerous awards for its work along the way. He sits on the committees of the Global TV Group and the UK’s Parliamentary Debating Group, and stands if someone needs a seat more than him. In his spare time, he tries not to play FIFA, does play with his daughter, and enjoys cooking. His sausage ragù has been described as “pretty good“ and his roast chicken as “getting there.”
HILARY BORNDAHL
founder & CEO, Miix Analytics
SUE HAAS
president & COO, NLogic
SARAH THOMPSON
executive managing director, Glassroom
CATHERINE MACLEOD
president & CEO, thinktv
Since her appointment in April 2015, MacLeod has led the transformation of thinktv from an information bureau to an industry advocate for the power of television advertising to drive brand and business results.
Prior to thinktv, MacLeod was SVP, Specialty Channels at Bell Media where she was responsible for brand and programming strategies across all of Bell Media’s non-sports specialty & pay television channels and digital assets.