R2C Group Adds Toner As Agency’s First CMO
PORTLAND, Ore. – March 4, 2015 – Independent agency R2C Group announced today that it has added Mark Toner as its first Chief Marketing Officer. Toner will oversee all marketing and agency growth for the $400 million full service agency reporting to CEO and Co-Founder Michelle Cardinal. Just recently, he launched Add Toner, a growth accelerator for emerging brands. Prior to that, Toner served as Managing Partner of Source Marketing, (an MDC Partners agency) where he spent the last 15 years running new business for this leading strategic consumer experience agency. During his tenure, Toner is credited with helping to significantly grow the agency and attract dozens of prominent brands to its roster.
Before his time at Source Marketing, Toner worked at multiple digital and direct agencies such as eSource, which he co-founded and Brann Worldwide, the largest direct marketing agency at the time, where he led new business efforts as SVP, Marketing. Toner also opened Williams Worldwide’s New York office, a leading independent DRTV media agency. In all of these positions he served on the senior management team, overseeing marketing and new business growth. Toner spent his early years on the client side working for Fortune 50 global brands, such as Philips Electronics, Toshiba and Hertz.
Cardinal said: “I have known Mark for over 20 years and his track record as one of the strongest new business developers in our industry made him incredibly attractive for this new role. The combination of his brand and agency side experience, across virtually every business category will provide incredible value to our agency. His instigation and leadership changed the destiny of many product categories and the way consumer goods are sold and we are looking forward to seeing how he creates instant impact to our clients and prospects for us.”
“Joining R2C group feels like a homecoming of sorts having worked with the principals as a former client, partner, and colleague in previous firms,” said Toner. “I am super impressed by the talent, culture, clients and diverse capabilities of R2C Group, and look forward to helping them drive fast growth to new categories and prestigious brands.”
Toner added: “I’ve always been a big believer and fan of R2C Group’s practice of transactional brand building and while on the client side, was one of the first Fortune 500 marketers to include direct response television as a strategic driver of the media mix to build brand metrics while driving sales volume.”
Toner is an investor in Crowdflik a crowd source video app, and sits on the board of advisors for americantowns.com a hyper local native content platform. Toner holds an MBA in marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University, in addition to graduating magna cum laude from the institution with a B.S. in Marketing. Toner lives in Norwalk, CT with his two children and has been actively involved with numerous organizations, in particular with the ANA (Association of National Advertisers.)
