With the provocative theme, “
Don’t let change leave you behind,” The Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA)
www.icacanada.ca has released its final schedule of more than 38 events and sessions featuring renowned speakers from around the world, as part of Canada’s largest and most anticipated annual communications and advertising event.
FFWD: Advertising and Marketing Week 2016 (
www.advertisingweek.ca) runs January 25 – 29, 2016 in Toronto; more than 6,000 attendees from the country’s advertising, marketing, technology and communications community are expected to attend.
Monday January 25
The week kicks off with the high profile, invitation-only Opening Breakfast sponsored by Bell Media, followed by the must-attend Opening Luncheon, aptly entitled “Readying your organization in the face of extreme change” featuring three New York industry icons: Carter Murray, worldwide CEO of FCB, Andrew Bruce, president and CEO of Publicis North America and Mark Tutssel, global chief creative officer of Leo Burnett Worldwide. Lastly, Yahoo’s Leo Polanowski kicks off the inaugural daily Yahoo Speaker Series Monday afternoon with a compelling commentary on “The Currency of Data.”
Tuesday January 26
Day two features the thought-provoking Morning Masters Series, with UOIT professor, Dr. Christopher Collins discussing “Understanding culture and society through visual text analysis” followed by Marketshare’s Isaac Weber on “TV effectiveness in a changed media landscape” and Shaw Media’s “Next Generation Television.” Google’s lead of strategy & insights, Zahra Kanji discusses “The biometrics of branding.” Applied Arts examines creativity with “Diary of a Creative Director” featuring consultant Heidi Ehlers in conversation with renowned DDB Worldwide CCO, Amir Kassaei. Lastly, Steve Levy, COO of Ipsos, in collaboration with the ICA will unveil its newsworthy annual “Most Influential Brands Study,” a powerful body of work reflecting the global importance of brand influence and managing change.
Wednesday January 27
Musings on “Creative Thinking in the 21st century” kicks off Morning Masters on day three, featuring Dr. Gerard Puccio, esteemed Chair and professor at Buffalo State University. Sessions to follow include Quantcast, Twitter’s “Engaging the world of Creators” with Nick Millman of Niche, and Facebook Canada’s Josh Bloom examining “FBIQ Insights: Understanding people in the new world of communication.” Underscoring FFWD’s overarching theme, “Don’t let programmatic leave you behind” demystifies the rapidly changing world of ad tech with a noteworthy panel featuring Adobe’s Pete Kluge and The Shopping Channel’s Nurullo Makhmundov.
Thursday January 28
Day four begins with insights from Morning Master, Karin Schmidlin, manager of the Virtual Incubation Program at University of Waterloo; the AOL-sponsored breakfast features Ernie Cormier on “Shifting Gears: Thinking at the speed of change” and moves to a lively panel on “The future of media in a content driven world” featuring Michka Mancini, VP of Rogers Digital Media, Scott MacMillan, VP of NHL Integration, and Ryan Archibald, managing director at Vice, moderated by host Ken Reid of Sportsnet Central. Brent Bernie, president of comScore Canada examines “Mobile Consumption of Digital Content” followed by returning FFWD audience favourite, Sapient Nitro’s provocative Innovations Director, Howard Goldkrand with “Turn on, tune in, drop out: the virtual is real.” Addictive Mobility CEO, Naveed Ahmad explores “Data driven creative in a mobile first world,” Sharethrough president, Patrick Keane ponders “The native transformation of mobile and video” and internationally renowned CD, thoughtleader, founder & CEO of StrawberryFrog New York, Scott Goodson takes the stage to close the day with the intriguing topic “Canadian Advertising, Do or Die?” sponsored by Kijiji.
Friday January 29
For those still hungry for more inspiration, FFWD 2016 is honoured to host Mr. Maurice Lévy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis Groupe – named by Harvard Business Review as one of 2015’s Best Performing list of CEOs in the World, and an international global leader in communications – on his post-Davos Summit Canadian visit. Mr. Levy will opine on “
Forces of Transformation” and share key insights at the Closing Luncheon sponsored by the Globe and Mail. The must-attend agenda also features presentations by Yahoo on “
The State of Mobile: The Rise of Mobile Addicts,” by UBC’s Sauder School of Business professor Dr. Tim Silk, and a thought-provoking panel from Post Media featuring Joe Chidley and Derek Chezzi of Content Works with Darren Diehl of Tangerine Bank on “
Building the scalable content marketing machine.” A look at “
Consumer trends that will shape 2016 and beyond” will be presented by Stacy Glasgow of Mintel, and the week ends with content one must watch… the compelling and inspirational
Cannes Advertising Reel, presented by the Globe and Mail.
“This year’s FFWD: Advertising and Marketing Week and its overriding theme of change is undoubtedly the biggest and most inspiring yet,” added Gillian Graham, CEO, ICA. “To lift from our clever creative campaign by Publicis, don’t let change leave YOU behind.”
About FFWD: Advertising and Marketing Week Advertising Week was launched in 2009 and has grown into the Canada’s largest and most diverse annual gathering of advertising, marketing and media leaders, attracting 6,000+ attendees to Toronto each January. It consists of international keynote speakers, conferences, seminars, awards, panel presentations and Next Generation events and showcases the industry’s best, while offering a forum to highlight new ideas, key business drivers, and industry discussions. The brand identity was changed to FFWD: Advertising and Marketing Week in 2013, to better reflect the content’s appropriateness for the entire industry. The week is spearheaded by the ICA in conjunction with the associations, agencies, advertisers, suppliers and public service partners in the communications industry. Every year, the composition of the week is re-engineered, with some past programming being phased out, while new content is explored on a pilot basis. View 2015 FFWD
here.
For more information, schedules and tickets visit
www.advertisingweek.ca. Some sessions are selling out; book tickets early to avoid disappointment.
