Earlier this year, dentsu Media launched what it hopes will become an industry institution by announcing the third Wednesday in June will be celebrated as Media Partner Appreciation Day.   

The inaugural event was celebrated virtually this year with the recognition of hundreds of publisher partners both publicly via LinkedIn and privately with over 400 personalized thank-you messages.  The aspiration is that this “day” will be embraced by the media industry as an annual event and that this year follows with in-person acclamations.   

The idea was born out of a study conducted by dentsu that surveyed over 500 representatives to understand the challenges that the media publisher industry has faced during the pandemic, as well as to better understand how to help.  There was a lot of communication during the pandemic around how agencies and clients were dealing with COVID-19, but not a lot of conversation around the challenges that the publisher industry faced.  

Alex Panousis, CEO of dentsu Media Canada, says sales partners have risen to the challenge with an immense amount of agility and the patience required to handle the volume of changes thrown their way. We believe a buoyant Canadian media sales industry is critical to us. We wanted to make sure they know how much we appreciate them.     

Devyn Perry, SVP Client Management at Carat, adds that the relationship we have with our partners is vital to our success. They are an extension of us and, in many cases, our friends. This event is meant to go beyond the daily accolades that should be table stakes for the support they provide.   

In addition to the recognition of partners, dentsu also announced they would be launching an annual scholarship to give back to the sales community. Details are being finalized this month, with an announcement to follow later this fall around recipient details.