• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, March 4, 2015

Independent ad agency R2C Group confirmed today that it has added Mark Toner as its first Chief Marketing Officer.  Toner will oversee all marketing and agency growth efforts for the full service agency reporting to CEO and Co-Founder Michelle Cardinal. 

Just recently, the newly-minted CMO launched an advisory firm, Add Toner,  that provides guidance to start-ups.  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 the shop. 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 direct marketer Brann Worldwide, where he led new business efforts as SVP, Marketing.   Toner also opened Williams Worldwide’s New York office, a leading independent DRTV media agency.  Toner spent his early years on the client side working for Fortune 50 global brands, such as Philips Electronics, Toshiba and Hertz.

Commenting on the appointment, 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. “  

“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'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. 

Portland, OR-based R2C Group has annual billings of about $400 million. It also has offices in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Providence. Clients include ChristianMingle.com, Web.com, Consumer Cellular, TaxACT.com, Wayfair.com, bareMinerals, Ancestry.com, ProFlowers and GameFly.com, as well as brands such as Humana Healthcare, Bissell, Microsoft, Kimberly Clark, Chase Bank, KitchenAid, TiVo, Nintendo, P&G and Vonage.