Marketforce, Perth appoints former IAB boss Alice Manners as its first chief digital officer

Marketforce, Perth has appointed Alice Manners as chief digital officer, a newly created position within the agency, effective August 22.

Manners is a senior digital and media specialist with more than 20 years’ experience working across the Asia Pacific region. Most recently she was the CEO of Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) based in Sydney. Prior to this, Manners held a number of roles with WPP Asia Pacific including GroupM Asia Pacific COO of Interaction and managing director of mOne Asia Pacific.

Marketforce CEO John Driscoll said the role of chief digital officer reflected a “maturing of Marketforce’s approach to its digital offering, and was in line with a worldwide trend to provide a seamless integration of traditional and digital media planning, with strategic and consumer planning – all linked with campaign based creative solutions”.

“Clients today are faced with a barrage of marketing choices and often conflicting information provided from a multitude of sources” he said. “Our role as an agency must be to make sense of those choices, using well-grounded research, data analytics and consumer media consumption habits to provide simple, fact-based single source solutions for our clients.”

Driscoll said the appointment of Manners is a major coup for Marketforce and represents a significant move to consolidate its media resources and data analytics with its highly regarded creative fire power.

Manners said Marketforce presented an exciting opportunity to combine her most recent experience at the IAB with comprehensive agency credentials to address the evolving needs of today’s marketer.

“As we move forward the creative application of technology to solve problems is vital but at the same time we can’t forget the importance of human touch. Marketforce’s commitment to a fully integrated media, strategic and creative solution for clients and its ability to deliver on this commitment is impressive and the envy of many larger agencies across the globe who are struggling to re-connect these key elements of their service offering.”