Marketing News Roundup: September 09, 2022

Today we feature a round-up of some big events and recent industry happenings.

• Canaccord Genuity launches new brand identity as CG
• Meet the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders Class of 2022
• New Report From MarketingOps.com, Knak, and Adobe Shows That More Than 80% of Companies Have a Dedicated Marketing Operations Individual or Team In 2022
• Clutch Launches the Second Iteration of "Deflate the Dealership" Campaign

Read more below!

Canaccord Genuity launches new brand identity as CG

Canaccord Genuity has launched a complete brand identity refresh, including a naming shift towards CG, which symbolizes its ambition to make a meaningful difference for its clients and celebrates its position as one of the country’s leading and most successful independent financial services firms.

This evolution includes updates to core elements of the firm’s visual identity, including the logo and a new colour palette. To support the transition, CG will be making significant investments in advertising and communications to further raise awareness and understanding of its brand, which operates and excels in two principal segments – wealth management and capital markets.

“The CG brand is unique. Our focus on providing best-in-class, customized solutions has driven us to gain strong momentum. This brand evolution reflects our growth and is a symbol of our commitment to delivering for our clients. CG’s new brand identity is rooted in our purposefully different approach, collaborative culture, sophisticated platform, and our robust resources,” says Jenni McIsaac, Head of Marketing, CG.

CG is a boutique financial services firm that has built a sophisticated global platform designed to meet clients’ individual needs. The firm prides itself in its approach and the way it operates -- collaboratively, with agility, and with the sole focus of delivering highly customized solutions and a superior client experience. The new branding reflects this approach.

CGs brand refresh was done in collaboration with Media Monks (creative lead), Cairns Oneil (media partner) and Erlich PR (PR partner)

Meet the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders Class of 2022

Research shows Black-led businesses face ongoing systemic challenges, including inequitable access to funding, personal development and mentorship opportunities. These challenges pose greater barriers to entry and success for underrepresented founders in the startup community.

Google Canada launched the Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders cohort in 2020 to support racial equity in the startup ecosystem. Last year, they expanded our commitment by opening the Black Founders accelerator to Canadian startups. The accelerator provides the best of Google’s programs, products, people and technology to help Black-led startups scale and grow their businesses.

Back in June, Google put a call out for startups to apply for the 2022 North American Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders cohort. Today, they’re excited to share the 12 exceptional North American startups joining our third Black Founders accelerator, including Beam.city DNA, Human Squad Inc. and Node App, three Canadian startups based in Toronto.

Learn more about the Black-led startups below:

• Beam.city DNA (Toronto, Ontario): A growth coordination AI Platform helping businesses maximize growth using ads, email and social.
• EdLight (Melrose, Massachusetts) Uses AI to better read, interpret and digitize handwritten student work, reducing misconceptions and increasing equity amongst students, teachers and families.
• HumanSquad (Toronto, Ontario): Simplifies the immigration and study abroad system by empowering immigrants everywhere with the resources, products and personalized support to immigrate conveniently and affordably.
• Innovare (Chicago, Illinois): An app that aggregates and displays data from a variety of systems to empower education leaders to make data-driven decisions that positively impact students and communities.
• Mozaic (Chicago, Illinois): An API-first global payment platform built for co-creators on any project, providing smart contracts that automate split income among creative teams.
• Node (Toronto, Ontario): A gig marketplace that allows small businesses to hire local influencers in their neighbourhood.
• Onramp (Oakland, California): A workforce development platform helping companies build more diverse candidate pipelines by providing them with a mechanism to invest in skills development for current and future candidates.
• Paerpay (Boston, Massachusetts): A contactless payment and loyalty experience for restaurants and their guests that doesn't require a new point of sale (POS) system.
• Smart Alto (Birmingham, Alabama): A conversational sales platform for local service providers, enabling them to set meetings with clients without cold calling.
• TurnSignl (Minneapolis, Minnesota): A mobile platform that provides real-time, on-demand legal guidance from an attorney to drivers, all while their camera records the interaction.

The Google for Startups Accelerator: Black Founders program is an intensive 10-week digital accelerator for high potential Seed to Series A tech startups based in North America.

The accelerator kicks off on September 13, and participants will receive mentorship, technical support and curriculum covering product design, machine learning, customer acquisition, and leadership development for founders.

New Report From MarketingOps.com, Knak, and Adobe Shows That More Than 80% of Companies Have a Dedicated Marketing Operations Individual or Team In 2022

A new report by MarketingOps.com, in partnership with Knak, the codeless email and landing page creation platform for enterprise marketers, and Adobe, found that a number of organizations are investing heavily in Marketing Operations to help drive revenue. The State of the MO Pro 2022 report explores how Marketing Operations teams work across organizations, what technology is leveraged, and how senior leadership can support the growth of their employees. Over 550 Marketing Ops professionals (MO Pros) were surveyed for the report.

In 2021, only 65% of organizations had a Marketing Ops professional (MO Pro) in house. In 2022 that number is now at over 80%. The report serves as a benchmark for those in the field, which is in some ways still finding its footing. There is an increasing need to properly automate and manage marketing operations. As marketing scales, more opportunities for MO Pros have been introduced across all industries and seniority levels, according to the report.

The findings show that email marketing is in fact not dead, with more than 50% of Marketing Ops professionals including a dedicated email marketing and/or landing page creation tool in their tech stack in 2022. The report also exemplifies that Marketing Ops entails much more than email. Other responsibilities of this profession include: Developing and implementing software or system integrations/management, designing, implementing, and optimizing operational policies and procedures, evaluation of and needs-identification for tech stack, conducting and analyzing market and competitive research, evaluation and purchase of IT hardware, and more.

“Last year, we learned a lot about the Marketing Ops field, like that Marketing Ops professionals are open to adopting new tech, and that they are often solely responsible for the admin of their marketing automation platforms,” said Mike Rizzo, Founder of MarketingOps.com. “For The State of the MO Pro 2022 report, we dug a little deeper to find out exactly how MO Pros work best, what their tech stacks are, and what support they need to excel.”

“One of the most sought-after roles within an organization is increasingly becoming Marketing Operations, which is something the Knak team sees across our network,” said Pierce Ujjainwalla, Knak’s CEO and Co-founder. “As a career marketer and a MarTech founder, it is important to me to be able to partner with organizations like MarketingOps.com and Adobe to set benchmarks for the Marketing Operations industry as it continues to grow.”

Additional insights from the report:

• Marketing Ops teams’ top priority in 2022 is to support revenue operations and optimization
• MO Pros skew on the younger side, with Millennials and Gen Z being the most heavily represented generations in the field
• Half of the marketers surveyed reported not knowing HTML, showcasing why codeless email and landing page creation is so important

Overall, the data from this benchmark report shows that MO Pros aren’t going anywhere. With the younger workforce behind the field and the ability to automate Marketing Operations through tech know-how, this group of marketing professionals is sure to dominate the industry in the years to come.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Marketing Operations field, read the full The State of the MO Pro 2022 report here.

Clutch Launches the Second Iteration of "Deflate the Dealership" Campaign

Canada's fastest-growing online car retailer, Clutch, wants Canadians to step away from the traditional car dealer experience.

Clutch has released the second iteration of the “Deflate the Dealership” campaign with a more provocative twist. The brand campaign pokes fun at the many downfalls of the traditional used car dealership experience, while showing Canadians that there is now a better way to buy a used car. The face of the campaign is none other than the iconic wacky waving inflatable tube man—a character beloved by dealership lots everywhere.

See below for a look at the ad spots here:

• 6s Spot
• 15s Spot

As an extension of the “Deflate the Dealership” campaign, Clutch has also released its first OOH display. The cheeky display can be seen on billboards across Saskatoon and below:

Compiled by Emma Whiten, Editor of Marketing News Canada