SO.DA BOLSTERS LEADERSHIP BENCH WITH FIVE NEW SENIOR ROLES TO SUPPORT GROWTH

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April 28, 2022

 SO.DA BOLSTERS LEADERSHIP BENCH WITH FIVE NEW SENIOR ROLES TO SUPPORT GROWTH

 Agency Also Launches PR and Experiential Arm, Extending Integrated Offering

For Immediate Release

TORONTO, April 28, 2022 – so.da, Corus Entertainment’s award-winning social-first agency, announced today the addition of five new senior leadership roles to the team to support the agency’s continued rapid growth and new PR offering.

Chaman Sandhu joins so.da as Director of Audience Development. In this new role, Sandhu will lead the strategy and operations of so.da’s owned social and digital editorial content properties, and will oversee the performance analytics team. Prior to joining so.da, Sandhu was the Brand Management Lead at Truss Beverage Co., a joint venture between Molson and HEXO, and Canada’s leading producer of cannabis-infused beverages and brings more than 15 years of marketing and strategy experience across a variety of both agency and client-side companies.

Kelly Duffy has been promoted to the new role of Director, Client Accounts, overseeing so.da’s rapidly growing managed service business, providing strategy, production, analytics and community management for clients’ brands. Duffy has been with so.da since 2019, taking on progressively senior roles in the agency’s Client Account team. Duffy joined so.da after working at Virtue, Vice Media’s Creative Studio. Duffy will also be hiring for an additional six roles designed to further power client work.

Elana Schachter joins the company as the new Head of so.da’s award-winning creator agency, Kin Community Canada, which was one of the country’s first influencer agencies and was acquired by Corus in 2019 to further bolster so.da’s offering. With more than 20 years of experience in the entertainment and media industry, Schachter will be responsible for the overall vision, strategy and operations for Kin Community Canada, including overseeing sales, marketing, creator relations, data and analytics, and new business development.

After soft launching PR services last year to augment its client work and bring more integrated campaigns to clients, so.da is further expanding this new offering, adding Ashley Applebaum as Head of Publicity and Michelle McTeague as Director of PR for so.da. Applebaum brings more than 16 years of PR experience to so.da, spanning the gamut from publicity, events, crisis communications and issues management, while McTeague comes with 15 years of PR experience to this new role across both agency and client-side, and is known for her innovation, creativity and strong relationships with the media. The so.da PR team will provide clients with PR, experiential/event planning, and communications services, both as an integrated so.da offering, as well as on a standalone basis.

Since its 2017 launch, so.da has grown into a content powerhouse and one of the country’s top social agencies. One part publisher, one part agency, and bolstered by the power of Corus, the agency brings a unique offering to the market, driven by data and through its social-first approach to storytelling, at scale. so.da produces 1,500 pieces of social content a week on its own brands alone, and is testing and learning daily across platforms, which provides a deep repository of insights and learnings that are applied to Clients’ work which drives exceptional performance.

“We developed so.da in 2017 to address the need for social-first content targeting consumers where they were spending time, and since its inception the agency has seen explosive growth as the need for strong social expertise and the ability to produce content at scale continues to grow,” said Dervla Kelly, Senior Vice President, Marketing & so.da, Corus Entertainment. “The addition of these extremely talented and experienced leaders will help us to continue to super-serve clients and chart the next chapter of growth for the agency.”

For more more information, or to get in touch with the so.da team, email hello@sodashop.ca.

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About so.da
so.da is a full-service, specialized, and award-winning social-first agency offering strategy, community management, content production, analytics and social listening, talent and influencer integration, PR, and creative services. In addition to managing Corus’ vast portfolio of brands in the social space, including Food Network Canada, HGTV Canada, Global TV, Slice, W Network and Complex Canada, so.da works with many of Canada’s leading brands to support their social, digital, and PR strategies, along with integrated and in-house content production. A leading player in Canada, and one of the fastest-growing full-service agencies, so.da’s deep understanding of the social and digital space has led to above average engagement rates, watch times and lower CPEs. Last year alone, so.da content was viewed over five billion times. www.sodashop.ca


About Kin Community Canada
Kin Community Canada are experts in influencer marketing and social media strategy and represent many of Canada’s top lifestyle creators including The Domestic Geek (2.3+ million), DIY Mommy (1.3+ million), hot for food (906K), and Alexandra Gater (563K). Working in conjunction with Corus, Kin uses data and trends to help brands develop cohesive campaigns that leverage their network creator’s highly-engaged audiences as well as tapping into a broad base of Kin vetted creators. Kin was acquired by Corus Entertainment in Spring of 2019. For more information please reach out to Kin Partner Enquiries (KINPartnerInquiries@corusent.com).


For more information, contact:

Ashley Applebaum
Head of Publicity, so.da
416.860.4217
ashley.applebaum@corusent.com

Michelle McTeague
Director of PR, so.da
416.966.7724
michelle.mcteague@corusent.com