Notable Team of the Week: AdParlor

It’s no secret that exceptional work stems from the power of collaboration. So in addition to featuring notable young professionals and entrepreneurs every single day, we’ll be chatting to some of Canada’s best teams every Thursday to get an inside look at how they combine talents to stand out in their industry. Today we’re talking to the team behind AdParlor in Toronto…

WORK 

Describe what you and your team focus on in less than 140 characters. Go.
We, the AdParlor Product Team (Toronto), create technology to run, scale and optimize campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and Pinterest.

What kick ass projects/programs have you been working on recently?
We just launched a feature called the Sports API that automatically triggers social ads in real-time based on live moments during sporting events. For example, you can trigger an ad right away if a specific player scores a touchdown or if the game goes into overtime.

It’s a completely new way for brands to stand out and connect with consumers – very exciting!

What are some of the benefits of working on a team?
When you have a team as stocked full of talent like ours, the equation isn’t 1+1 = 2, it’s 1+1 = 6. We all push each other to do the best work and the result is exponential rather than incremental.

What are some of the biggest challenges you have faced?
To celebrate the merger with our sister company, TriVu Media, we rebranded our company last August. This included a total makeover of our office, which we decided to keep top secret from the rest of the company.

The problem? Keeping everybody out of the office for long enough — turns out we all really like coming to work! We ended up faking an electrical emergency in the office, asking everybody to stay at home “for safety reasons.”

Over the next three days, we worked tirelessly to paint, furnish, and redecorate our office space. Just imagine the look on everyone’s faces when they walked in that Monday to a brand new office.

Do you have any advice for other young professionals working within a team?
Take your ego out of it and realize that a well-functioning team will produce far more impactful results than a single individual. There’s an old quote that goes, “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit.” That’s the secret.

Within your organization, are teams switched up every once in a while or do they maintain the same? What are some of the benefits and cons of that?
The big benefit is that we have the consistency needed to build strong relationships within teams and establish that “#oneteamonedream” mentality, which is really motivating. At the same time, by having day-to-day tasks constantly evolve, it keeps everyone on their toes and allows them to challenge themselves in unique ways. Everyone is continuously learning and improving.

What does the word collaboration mean to you?
To us, collaboration is combining the right mix of talent, passion, and vision to achieve extraordinary results.

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What has been you and your teams favourite project/campaign/initiative to work on and why?
Recently, our favourite project was a feature called Custom Metrics. This feature allows you to create your own metrics by combining multiple standing ROI metrics for customized reporting.

It touched many different parts of our platform and required several iterations on the engineering and user experience sides. Releasing it was a huge accomplishment for our team and we met a goal that stakeholders have been anticipating for years.

PLAY

Where is your team’s favourite place to wine/dine in your city and why?
We’ll never say no to a good patio — Peter Pan Bistro, Bar Hop, and Belfast Love are some of my personal favourites.

Do you and your team go out together? Where and why?
We spend a lot of time together after hours. At the office, we have a ping-pong table, pool table, dartboard, basketball hoop, and lots of free drinks, so it’s a no-brainer to relax a bit after a long day at work. It’s great to be in an environment where you’re working with friends: extra motivation, great banter, and bad puns galore. Did I mention party parrot?

Team outings happen monthly or after a big release. These events help our team bond in a non-work environment, which is very important to the overall success of our product. We’ve done axe throwing, barbeques, beach volleyball days, archery, dodgeball, etc. — whatever we can think of.

Whats the best thing that has happened to you and your team recently?
We’ve had a recent influx of new members who’ve brought fresh ideas and motivation, and really reinvigorated us as a team. I’m excited to see what we can do in the upcoming months with a bigger, stronger, and more diverse team.

Are there any other teams within your company or any company that you know of that are killing it?
Our Account Management and Ad Operations teams are some of the best social advertising ad traffickers in the world. They consistently beat advertiser expectations and win bake-offs against competitors.

And finally, what does success look like to you and your team? Work, play, or otherwise
It’s all about building badass, innovative products that get our clients better results than anything else out there that they could possibly use and always pushing everyone on the team to be the best versions of themselves.

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