Evidence of meeting #48 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was campaign.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Can you give us a view of Retail Media, what's the scope of the business, without giving us the numbers, of course? I don't know if you're private or public.
Your letterhead has three offices. Can you give us a little bit of background on the company so that we understand the scope and the length of time you've been in the media buy business?
As an Individual
Retail Media has been operating since the mid-1990s. As the name indicates, it's a specialized company dealing with the very detailed transactions that retail normally encounters, market by market, that sort of thing. So we deal with a lot of different private sector advertisers, in quick-service restaurants and in office supplies. There's a whole group of clients. We really attract our clientele for people who are interested in very complex types of operations and a lot of franchisee-type operations. So it was appropriate, I think, in terms of our—
As an Individual
Yes, we do. I should say, of course, as you can appreciate, right across the country in English and French.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Okay, thank you.
There was an earlier question about when payments were made and by whom and cashflow aspects, which was interesting to me. Based on your answer, could you explain to me, is it standard operating practice in your business when you're buying time from media outlets that they expect to be paid for that in advance, or is it normally billed afterwards in the private sector? Do they treat us differently because we're political organizations?
As an Individual
It's standard for political advertising; it is different for other clients.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
Under your view--I don't know if you do business for anybody else--it's the media buy that would happen in our party. The Liberal Party, the Bloc, and the NDP would be exactly the same.
Conservative
Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON
The media outlets would expect payment in advance of those ads running. Is that correct?
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, and thanks to the witnesses.
I came from business before I was in politics. I used to buy an awful lot of media in a local market. It wasn't uncommon to have media call and ask whether I would transfer or trade a specific block that I had blocked off for a different block. Or, for example, if someone had blocked the back page of a newspaper, I would ask if they would allow me to supersede that and buy it from the newspaper.
I'm sure you transfer blocks all the time. It's very common, especially in the context of an election. I assume the opposition parties' representatives rush to try to block advantageous time. The transferring of blocks that you're talking about isn't uncommon, is it? This happens all the time.
As an Individual
Perhaps the best analogy in the private sector is a company that has a couple of different brands. That would be routine for a company that has a number of different brands. It wouldn't be that common for different advertisers. The reason is that they're usually trying to reach different sorts of people. Within one company, for different brands, it would happen very frequently.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Paul Szabo
Thank you.
We'll now move to round two, five-minute rounds.
Mr. Proulx, s'il vous plaît.
Liberal
Marcel Proulx Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
Welcome, again, to the witnesses.
Before I go too far, you've certainly read about this, or you've heard about this. There's been a question of some witnesses having been talked to by the Conservative Party prior to their deciding to come and participate with this committee.
Has any one of you discussed your appearance here this morning, or the contents of your statements, with the Conservative Party? I'm curious.
As an Individual
I've had no conversations with anyone in the Conservative Party about the appearance today.