Group managing director of the Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) in Ireland Shenda Loughnane is the new president of agency representative body, the Institute of Advertising Practitioners in Ireland (IAPI). She replaces Publicis director Jimmy Murphy, whose six-year term on IAPI’s board now ends. Loughnane joined DAN as group MD in April last year.
In her role, she is responsible for overseeing the Carat, iProspect, Vizeum and Isobar agency brands as well as managing the data, strategy and new product development divisions of DAN Ireland. Prior to her return to working in Dublin last year, she spent four years as global chief strategy officer for iProspect, based in Hamburg in Germany.
The iProspect role involved creating performance strategies for global clients as well as developing new solutions for the agency iProspect in performance content, commerce and co-op marketing. She has over 18 years of experience in digital advertising, on both the media and creative sides of the business, and seven years in traditional advertising.
She worked for ICAN for a decade and in media at CDP Associates for three years.
She also worked with media agencies Zenith and Havas in the UK and across Europe.
Loughnane said IAPI has done significant work for Irish advertising in recent years, from initiatives highlighting the need for greater diversity to campaigns designed to attract new talent, with much progress having been made. “There is much more we can do and these areas will continue to be a focus as we head into 2020,” she added.
Loughnane said advertising is at a pivotal moment in many ways.
While ad agencies are seeing growth, margins remain under pressure, attracting and affording talent is a perennial problem and the business faces new business challenges such as the trend towards in-housing agency services. She said the institute needs to look at how it can support agencies in improving margins and driving business growth.
“One key area we will be looking at next year is how we can reduce the cost of pitching and winning new business, currently a considerable financial drain on agencies,” she said. “But we also need to look closely at how and where we attract new business. Ireland has some of the best advertising talent globally and there is a huge opportunity for us to increase our visibility and presence at a global level and to attract global business to our market.”
Ireland’s involvement at Cannes and with the Effie awards will have a big part to play.
IAPI chief executive Charley Stoney paid warm tribute to outgoing president Jimmy Murphy, saying he had excelled in steering IAPI over the past two years. He oversaw several positive and strategic initiatives and he deserves enormous thanks for his time and hard work, not just in the last two years but over the last six years he has served on the board.
