Advertising can reach millions of people without leaving much of an impression. For Media Experts, the more important question is whether a brand comes to mind when consumers are ready to make a decision.

That thinking has helped reshape the agency since Karel Wegert returned as CEO in 2023. With 17% year-over-year growth and Media Agency of the Year Gold in 2026, Media Experts has been moving beyond traditional media planning toward a deeper understanding of how brands build and activate consumer memory.

Central to that approach is a locally developed “memory score,” which examines how strongly brands are associated with the situations, needs and occasions that trigger purchasing decisions. By mapping competitors across six memory pathways, the agency can identify where brands need to strengthen existing associations or establish new ones.

“When we start by understanding the memory pathway, it gives us a much more strategic understanding of what the problem is,” says Wegert.

AI helps accelerate competitive analysis, while research and client workshops turn those findings into strategic priorities. The framework has already been incorporated into more than 50 client strategies, with over 150 employees trained and presentations delivered to more than 200 marketers and creative teams.

Media Experts combines that locally developed thinking with Omnicom's technology and data capabilities, including Omni and Acxiom, to translate consumer understanding into more responsive media strategies.

The results are evident in its work. Pizza Pizza's “Crave O'Clock” identified specific moments when consumers might want pizza, connecting campaigns to baseball, gaming and 4/20. For WestJet, “Destination Data” combined travel search trends with consumer signals to dynamically promote more than 450 routes, reducing cost per booking by 17% and increasing return on ad spend by 18%. And for Netflix, Media Experts brought Stranger Things into Canadian communities through transit activations and immersive experiences, including a Toronto installation that engaged 1.5M attendees.

The agency's growth has also been accompanied by new business from L'Oréal, Sunwing Vacations Group, Turo and Whirlpool.

For Wegert, the opportunity is to make media agencies more valuable as strategic business partners, rather than simply buyers of advertising space.

“The greater value for a media agency now is helping clients understand their customers in depth: how they behave, how they consume media and how they can be reached in ways that are relevant and meaningful,” he says.