strategy Winter 2024

QUEEN OF BUCKETS

HOW KATHERINE BOND-DEBICKI IS REVIVING KFC

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Streamers hungry for ad dollars

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Influencers go rogue(ish)

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WINTER 2024

VOLUME 35, ISSUE 1

19 QUEEN OF BUCKETS

HOW KATHERINE BOND-DEBICKI IS REVIVING KFC

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Streamers hungry for ad dollars

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Streamers hungry for ad dollars

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TRUE BLUE

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Influencers go rogue(ish)

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Collaborating with creators Influencer marketing is taking a slight turn.

Content creators find themselves less shackled by guidelines as they take more control and even launch their own brands.

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IN THE BAG

HOW DEVORAH LITHWICK IS KEEPING BELL FRESH

HOW JESS SPAULDING IS INJECTING JOY INTO PEPSICO

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Streamers hungry for ad dollars

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Streaming meets adland

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Influencers go rogue(ish)

Streamers hungry for ad dollars

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Who runs the world? Leaders at KFC, Desjardins, Bell and PepsiCo show the industry what brandbuilding looks like.

HOW VALÉRIE SAPIN IS TAKING DESJARDINS ACROSS CANADA

Influencers go rogue(ish)

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Marketers of the Year

GOING THE DISTANCE

Influencers go rogue(ish)

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In this State of the Union address from media buyers and media companies, we explore what the new world of ad-supported streamers has to offer Canadian advertisers.

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ON THE COVERS: Hats off to Barbie, Taylor and Beyoncé but they weren't the only women to

dominate in 2023. Ok, so maybe comparing the above marketers to entertainers who contributed $8.5 billion to the American economy is a wee stretch. But, still, we're loving today's female visions of power.

Gracing not one, not two, not three, but four of strategy's covers this Winter issue, Katherine BondDebicki (KFC), Valérie Sapin (Desjardins), Devorah Lithwick (Bell) and Jess Spaulding (PepsiCo) were each awarded a Marketer of the Year title for their industry-shifting, culture-driving, business-leading work in 2023. Read them all. Collect them all. Come back for more.

THE INDIE LIST Canada's independent agencies are turning heads globally, they're consistent in creating innovative ways for brands to stand out and meet the evolving business challenges of today.

SUPPLEMENT Page 39

INDIE

4 Editorial Keeping up with the genuinfluencers • 8 Upfront Trends for the year, dissecting a high-profile athlete sponsorship, vending machines make a comeback and AI gets all the attention at a major CPG co • 65 The MIAs in pictures • 66 Back Page Focus group findings, courtesy of strategy

Canada’s indies consistently find innovative ways tackle challenges to and come up with less obvious solutions How they do that is as individual as . the agency themselv but if you want es – to know what the industry in Canada look like in future, will it’s being created by indies right now.

Read on to get a sneak peek.

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Winter 2024

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EDITOR’S NOTE

Are you for real? winter 2024 volume 35, issue 1 strategyonline.ca

I

love-and-loathe Hannah Neeleman. I love-and-loathe how the momfluencer makes milking cows, arranging homegrown flowers, kneading homemade sourdough, lambing sheep, running a meat-and-dairy farm, designing linen aprons, being a Julliard-trained ballerina, entering (and winning) the Mrs. American pageant, and homeschooling her seven kids – with an eighth on the way – look so effortless... so orchestrated... so unrealistic.

Her @BallerinaFarm IG account is a vortex for my mom-guilt, yet she’s relatable/genuine enough for me to want to keep scrolling. Hannah doesn’t hide behind a polished beige-tone home, and there’s always a toddler bellowing in the background of her reels. Hence, the love-and-loathe quandary.

Before becoming a mom-of-one led to my social feed being congested with momfluencers like Hannah, it was fitfluencers and homefluencers telling me how to shape my body and accessorize my abode.

I never really gave my unhealthy obsession with aspirational content creators more than a passing thought until recently, when the desire to emulate them (what they eat, what they do, what they buy) simply became too much.

Admittedly I’m just catching up, but influencer fatigue has been a thing for a while. Alongside it, a yearning for what WGSN coined as “genuinfluencers” – those who are far more interested in sharing authentic advice than simply selling stuff. They'd rather discuss issues, from gender equality to social justice. Back when the term was first introduced and the trend began to percolate, The Guardian led with the headline, “Being too aspirational is repellent now.” TikTok has its own name for the movement: Real-Tok, where picture-perfect lifestyles are out and raw conversations are in.

So where does that leave brands if a new I NEVER REALLY generation of creators aren’t interested in peddling GAVE MY their products? Well, you could take advantage of UNHEALTHY the opportunity to join wider cultural, societal and, OBSESSION WITH if you dare, geopolitical conversations. Unilever, not ASPIRATIONAL surprisingly, is at the forefront of this shift, calling on players in the ecosystem to “eradicate stereotypes CONTENT CREATORS from influencer branded content.” Now, all contracts MORE THAN A with influencers encourage inclusive thinking and PASSING THOUGHT that no harmful stereotypes are being portrayed.

UNTIL RECENTLY, It's also pushing for more eco conversations to WHEN THE DESIRE be tackled in content, and for creators to stop TO EMULATE THEM "greenhushing," offering legitimate climate science (WHAT THEY EAT, to use in their posts.

WHAT THEY DO, Advice from a recovering mom/home/fitfluencer WHAT THEY BUY) addict? Forget the Joneses and their vanity metrics.

SIMPLY BECAME TOO The past is made up, but the future is real.

MUCH.

Jennifer Horn Content Director and Editor, strategy

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publisher | lisa faktor | lfaktor@brunico.com content director, editor | jennifer horn | jhorn@brunico.com art director | tim davin | tdavin@brunico.com special reports, c-suite editor | sheima benembarek | sbenembarek@brunico.com associate publisher | neil ewen | newen@brunico.com strategydaily editor | andrew jeffrey | ajeffrey@brunico.com senior reporter | chris lombardo | clombardo@brunico.com reporter | andrea hernandez | ahernandez@brunico.com contributors | brendan christie, megan haynes, wendy kan, will novosedlik account manager | conidon pinto | cpinto@brunico.com account manager | nupur purohit | npurohit@brunico.com (leave) marketing co-ordinator | emily yuill | eyuill@brunico.com

CORPORATE president & ceo | russell goldstein | rgoldstein@brunico.com evp, strategy and realscreen & editorial director brunico | mary maddever | mmaddever@brunico.com director, finance & administration | michelle plaskon | mplaskon@brunico.com creative services & dist. manager | adriana ortiz | aortiz@brunico.com customer support supervisor | christine mcnalley | cmcnalley@brunico.com

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Entry deadline: January 19

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Ch-ch-changes and what we're excited about

A recent dive into strategy's "What keeps you up at night?" series in C-Suite struck a different cord than usual. In a sea of apparent turmoil, perhaps a better way to start off a new year is: "What are you excited about?" According to the adage, the only constant in life is change, so why not embrace it?

The world certainly embraced change last year with the rapid adoption of AI across industries, which fundamentally impacted our workflows and responsibilities. In a previous column I queried who (maybe robots) will be doing our work in the future. Well, I am glad to see that our adoption of AI has not replaced our work but instead forced us to understand how to harness the power of said tool, allowing us to get to better, stronger work easier and sometimes faster.

And we’re not just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

The work coming out of Canada is consistently showing up on the global stage showcasing our collective bench strength. Time and time again, Canadian creativity is the front-runner for best-in-class.

In this issue we take a look at 12 changemakers leading that charge and building the future of the industry in our annual Indie List (p.39). They beat to the sound of their own drum and they're constantly evolving their approach, and structuring their teams with senior talent to meet clients’ changing needs and objectives.

We also take a look at our Marketers of the Year (p.19) who have consistently shown Canadians

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how they are responding to their needs. The common thread through their journeys is an unwavering dedication to brand value and building on their position within consumers’ worlds. Read on to see why KFC’s Katherine Bond-Debicki, PepsiCo Foods' Jess Spaulding, Desjardins' Valérie Sapin and Bell Communications' Devorah Lithwick landed as this year’s MOYs. In the spirit of adaptation and responding to changing realities, we’ve made some strategic decisions too.

First, we’re excited to share that the AToMiC Awards program continues to see an increase of the most groundbreaking, cultureshifting ideas coming out of Canada.

The awards, which includes a reveal of the 2024 Creative Report Card, will stand on their own on March 5 at Mazzeloni Hall, so mark your calendars as we raise a glass to the AToMiC work.

Our commitment to providing a platform for live meaningful discussions and insights remains steadfast. As part of this commitment, we’ve rebranded our Shopper Marketing Forum (SMF) to the Connected Commerce Forum (CCF). This effort reflects the evolving nature of commerce, where connectivity, digital experiences, and seamless interactions shape the consumer journey.

The Connected Commerce Forum will again grow back into a twoday event (April 22 and 23) and dive into the multifaceted world of commerce, exploring the fusion of online and offline retail, the role

WE'RE EXTREMELY GRATEFUL TO THE UNWAVERING SUPPORT OF THE INDUSTRY THUS FAR, AND ARE EXCITED TO CONTINUE TO BRING READERS VALUABLE INDUSTRY COVERAGE, INDEPTH ANALYSIS AND EXCLUSIVE INTEL ACROSS 2024.

of technology in shaping consumer behaviour, and the strategies that drive success in this rapidly changing landscape. We hope to see you there.

Perhaps the largest change, which did keep us up at night, was the migration, investment and implementation of a premium subscription for content across strategyonline. We’re extremely grateful to the unwavering support of the industry thus far, and are excited to continue to bring readers valuable industry coverage, in-depth analysis and exclusive intel across 2024.

Our editorial team also welcomed a recent change. New to the strategy fold is our StrategyDaily editor Andrew Jeffrey, who is leading our daily coverage. Andrea Hernandez also joined the team as a reporter for Media in Canada (but stay tuned for more team news on the MiC front).

To that end, change and innovation is not just about adopting the latest trends, it’s about driving meaningful change, adapting to new realities and redefining paradigms. As we head into the next chapter, if there are areas of coverage, new formats you would like to see or feedback you’d like to share, we’d love to know. Drop us a line at lfaktor@brunico.com.

So, what are you excited about this year?

Cheers, Lisa Faktor, publisher, strategy

Go beyond your network.

Tap into strategy ’s dedicated marketing, media and creative audience to find your next star hire. strategyonline.ca/careers

BRAND DOCTOR

NOT MAKING THE GRADE-Y

By Christopher Lombardo

TRENDS

WHAT’S TRENDING FOR 2024?

After a rocky NBA start, rookie Gradey Dick was demoted by the Toronto Raptors to its development league. While his sports career is currently at a low point, the clean-cut, affable, and family-oriented Dick may still have his personal brand to fall back on.

On NBA draft night, the Kansas native went viral with a sartorial nod to his home state and The Wizard of Oz, rocking a ruby red Dolce & Gabbana-sequined shirt and jacket. And when the 6’7 small forward was seen attending Caribana, he became a social media sensation for donning a pink-and-blue Toronto FC jersey.

Dick’s affinity for the flamboyant caught the eye of Holt Renfrew, which quickly profiled the hooper

By Sheima Benembarek CONSUMERS LOOK FOR A SWEET ESCAPE With a truly difficult year behind us, emotional marketing will take centre stage, according to Euromonitor International. Consumers are looking for uplifting distractions and they crave optimism. In fact, 55% of consumers shopped in stores that provided an engaging experience in 2023 and 29% of them said they’d be comfortable with brands tracking their emotions and personalizing experiences to their moods. Limited-edition collections, vibrant designs and captivating imagery will persist in catching shoppers’ attention. Euromonitor predicts this year will see more immersive encounters catering to escapism, with events intertwining tech, brand narratives and entertainment.

BOOMERS SCROLL AND SPEND MORE GWI’s trends report reminds us that Baby Boomers are increasingly spending their time on social media. While Facebook remains the platform of choice for this group, video-based apps like TikTok are quickly gaining traction.

And with a high purchasing power and

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an increased likelihood that they will purchase products online, not paying attention to them in advertising is a missed opportunity. In the year ahead, a strong business case is being made for marketers to understand and speak to an older audience.

MARKETERS OPEN WALLETS TO INFLUENCERS Nearly 60% of marketers globally plan to spend more marketing dollars on influencers in 2024, according to Kantar’s Gonca Bubani, who also shares that 50% of brands invested in content creators in 2023. That said, if marketers work with influencers to take an activist stance or if they decide to create their own content around important issues, “they need to take care not to be cancelled for being inappropriate...

Marketers will need to become more culturally connected and learn how to navigate any possible backlash to their content, or influencer content, on social media.” But, if brands are consistent with messaging and “stand up for what they believe, [they’ll] make their way into consumers’ hearts, despite possible short-term controversies.”

in its video series “What Do You Wear?” Adidas signed the rook to a multi-year footwear contract and Gillette put him in a shaving ad. Meanwhile, Canadian energy drink Guru announced Dick as its brand spokesman.

Now that Dick is temporarily toiling in the minors, should these brands be concerned?

Matthew Kelly, managing partner with Level5 Strategy, says that when it comes to these kinds of athlete deals, marketers need to ask, “Is the relationship doing any damage to the brand or my

UP F RONT

organization?” Then, they need to consider whether an athlete deal was meant as a revenue driver, relationship builder, or sales enabler.

“If that isn’t coming through, you need to pivot to plan B very quickly,” adds Kelly. If Dick is out of the limelight, and not putting up points, the value is simply not there, Kelly says, unless he suddenly succeeds and achieves a kind of underdog status redemption arc and earns back what’s been temporarily lost.

“Why cut bait?” asks Dustin Rideout, partner, and chief strategy officer at The Hive, who points out that it is common

Clockwise from left: Guru, Adidas and Gillette have all attached their brands to the rook, who is currently experiencing a career setback.

for rookies to struggle mightily. Also, as Rideout notes, the Raptors overall have been languishing at the bottom of the Eastern Conference, which is not doing any favours for Raptor pitchmen like Scottie Barnes (Google Pixel, Subway and Bitbuy) or Pascal Siakam (McDonald’s and Frito Lay).

When a brand is linked to an athlete, the challenge is figuring out how to make them relatable. And Dick’s struggles, Rideout says, could actually resonate. “ A narrative of setbacks and mental fortitude, and listening to yourself and having confidence,” those are broad narratives that all of us can relate to,” he says.

As a marketer, rather than risking the vicissitudes of linking a brand to a particular athlete – which could be hampered by performance issues, injuries, trades to a different geography, misconduct – Rideout advocates supporting grassroots sports.

MADE YOU LOOK

SELF-SAMPLING ON TRIAL

While the jury is still out on self-checkout systems (ICYMI, grocers are rethinking automated kiosks and removing them from stores, thanks to a surge in theft), there may be a future for self-serve sampling.

Over in the States, Costco made the rounds on TikTok when shoppers posted images of unattended sampling kiosks earlier this year. In the Fall, Ulta Beauty also launched a sampling program, dishing out complimentary Rael period care products via machines.

Standalone self-serve sampling kiosks have been around stateside since 2015, however they have never really caught on in Canada, until now, says Jason Dubroy, omnichannel specialist and former SVP, commerce, and experience for Mosaic North America. Both Yogi Tea and NotCo have recently been experimenting with sampling kiosk machines in Montreal grocers, with the help of SaintHyacinthe Quebec’s Uptaste.

The concept, Dubroy explains, was pioneered by Chicago’s Freeosk, an app-based automated sampler that has partnered with the likes of Safeway and Sam’s Club. Freeosk’s 1,400 retail kiosk locations dole out freebie

Mondelez brands like Clif bars and Sour Patch Kids.

With retail media becoming normalized across ecomm ecosystems, Dubroy expects to see more automated sampling north of the border.

“To date, the number one way to convert to trial is through in-store sampling,” Dubroy says, citing Freeosk’s own statistics that its sampling campaigns generate an average sales lift of over 50%, with 70% of buyers being new to the brand, “which is fairly impressive.”

The tech is unique as it allows for in-store merchandising, data capture, product education, and sampling to happen in the same place.

“Some activations happen with a smartphone so there can be data handshake opportunities including closed-loop attribution, and many stores now include the tools as part of the retail media toolbox,” Dubroy says, adding that a barrier is having dedicated teams ensuring a constant replenishing of sample and featured stock.

Above left and right: Data shows that Ulta Beauty and NotCo in-store sampling has have been exploring made a comeback in the use of unmanned most major grocers vending machines for post-pandemic, says sample programs.

Dubroy, as digital ads are becoming more expensive to connect to direct conversion. As retailers build their capabilities, he expects shoppers will see more contactless sampling innovations being trialled as part of overall connected commerce strategies. CL

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UPFRONT

TECH

Unilever’s investment comes as the marketing and advertising industries explore how AI can be used to make work more efficient. Jason Brommet, Microsoft general manager of modern work and surface for the U.S., Canada and Latin America, says AI can be used by agencies, for example, to cut down the hours otherwise needed to format and design creative pitches.

He also imagines AI being used to more effectively utilize the institutional memory of long-running shops. “Agencies have years and years of data and customer intelligence and customer insight.

But being able to mine all of that data is often hard,” Brommet says. “If you think about this environment where you can curate all of those insights and all of that intelligence so that you’re able to respond to customers faster, and you’re able to build pitches faster, you’re able to identify patterns, buyer behaviour, buyer research and all of those capabilities.”

Brommet says there is opportunity for industries to make

CANADA IS A HOTBED FOR AI AND UNILEVER IS ALL IN

By Andrew Jeffrey

As the marketing industry looks into how AI can be applied across their organizations, Unilever signaled to the world that it’s investing heavily in the tech – right in our own backyard. Late last year the CPG giant opened up a global AI facility, called Horizon3 Labs, choosing Toronto for its headquarters.

Horizon3 Labs’ focus is to find ways to increase productivity using AI tools and tech. It intends to do this by generating new concepts, designs and projects that can be scaled and used across the global business.

“Unilever has identified 15 focus areas aligned to our business priorities. Horizon3 Labs will initially focus on the three that have the greatest potential for making an immediate impact: forecasting, modelling complex data relationships with graph technology, and generating insights on trends, patterns and predictions through [generative AI],” says Gary Bogdani, head of data science for Unilever North America, and head of data and analytics for Unilever Canada.

Toronto was chosen for the lab due to its access to a growing network of academia, start-ups and businesses dedicated to AI, says Bogdani.

Unilever already reports using more than 400 applications of AI across disciplines including marketing and customer service, as well as advanced analytics and machine learning in supply chain and logistics.

The company has demonstrated a couple uses of AI in marketing, such as creating an engine for Hellmann’s recipe website, which provides more relevant results, drawing from users’ individual tastes using fewer searches. Unilever has also developed an AI tool to auto-update product titles and descriptions on retail websites.

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Above: Unilever is investing heavily into the use of AI to better market its portfolio of brands, and it recently picked Toronto as a hub for its experiments.

real strides at improving productivity amid a sea of technical advancements and new apps that can be difficult to keep up with.

“We as humans are drowning under technical depth,” he says.

“We’ve got more apps, we’ve got more data, we’ve got more communications that we just can’t physically process as humans, and it ultimately impacts innovation. How do we actually improve Canada’s productivity and innovation on a global scale? To me, AI is one of those profound transformational technologies that’s going to enable us to go do it.”

The work that shook the status quo.

March 5

Toronto

https://atomicawards.strategyonline.ca

Below: TikTok says more creators are building their brands with business ventures outside of creating content.

Content creators take control of their brands SOME INFLUENCERS ARE BECOMING MORE SELECTIVE WHEN IT COMES TO BRAND AFFILIATION, AS THEY SEEK MORE CREATIVE FREEDOM AND COLLABORATIVE PARTNERSHIPS.

BY SHEIMA BENEMBAREK

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Roxy Earle confidently walked onto the social scene in strappy heels after she was cast as one of the Real Housewives of Toronto (RHOT) back in 2017. Her influence grew as her popularity on the show soared, and soon enough, she had her own lifestyle brand called Luxurious Roxy, empowering women through body positive messaging. “It wasn’t some big strategic plan to start a brand,” she explains, “it was just that no one understood or was serving my needs. I had a hard time shopping and finding clothes that fit me. And so I thought, I’ll fill that gap in the market. And if I fill it for myself, then other people will be interested in it too.”

A year after her debut on the RHOT reality show, Earle entered a partnership with retailer Le Château to design a fashion line and serve as creative director. Next, she collaborated on an inclusive swimwear line for Knix and several capsule collections for Joe Fresh. Today, she’s building a women’s health app, called Ana, that’s focused on menstrual cycle tracking and healthy mindset practices. The app is in beta mode, but the next iteration will centre on fertility. “And then, my business partner, Joanna Griffiths of Knix, and I have a fashion styling and shopping app coming out. But that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Earle is part of a movement of content creators and influencers diversifying their brands, finding new revenue, taking agency of their position in a competitive market and (more importantly to marketers) becoming selective when it comes to which brands to partner with – and how.

Social media is right up there with smartphones and audio and video streaming as one of the most impactful creations of the century. But while the market value of influencer marketing, according to Statista, has ballooned to a whopping USD $21.1 billion this year (more than tripling since 2019), the downside is that the creator economy has become overly saturated. “[As a consumer], I’m fatigued by how much is out there,” Earle says.

“I’m fatigued by all the content and all the ads and everyone’s coming at me every day telling me what I need to buy, how I need to look, what I need to do, how I need to parent, what I need to eat. It’s like we hit gold,

Above: Endy says its seeing a shift in brands giving creators more creative freedom, which leads to authentic content.

and then every single corner I turn somebody is hawking gold jewelry at me.”

As for influencers, they’re experiencing burnout as a result of the increased competition, says global creative and social agency We Are Social in a recent report. To remedy this, some content creators are diversifying their revenue and creative output through things like podcasts and product launches. This growing entrepreneurial edge is leading to influencers wanting to take more control, which in turn is affecting how they work with brands.

“I’m seeing a big shift from transactional to collaborative strategic partnerships [between brands and influencers]. It’s very hard to stand out anymore with the algorithms and the plethora of content that’s out there – it becomes really critical to align [your brand] with someone who has really built a community with their audience,” says Emma Ferrara, chief business development officer at Viral Nation, a global digital and social agency. “There is a growing emphasis on [brands] bringing creators closer to the fold, collaborating on launches, having them more at the forefront of the table when it comes to creative ideation.”

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Left and right: Roxy Earle collaborates with Joe Fresh on a clothing line; influencers like Yuri Lamasbella are diversifying their brands with merch.

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Christina Sfeir, director of PR and strategic communications at Endy – a Canadian online mattress company that usually works with nano and micro influencers – agrees that creators need more creative freedom if marketers are to build a rapport and capture their audience’s attention.

“We scaled back a little bit to leave creativity in the hands of the creators because they’re going to know what works best on their platform. We want things to perform well and they know how that’s going to happen,” Sfeir says.

At any given time, Endy works with 15 to 30 influencers and maintains a relationship with each for about six months. “We also do our best to continue those relationships, making sure that they feel like a community with our brand – we update them on new products, we invite them to our store events. Influencers should have always been considered partners from the beginning,” she goes on. “That shift in power and trust has been really important, and influencers and brands need to recognize it and adapt.”

Talent agencies are also seeing this shift in real-time among their clients.

“Influencers are creating brands around them, and for the ones we represent, we’re supporting them in that journey – we help them monetize the content, we’re developing ventures around them,” says Ferrara.

For instance, one of Viral Nation’s influencer clients, Yuri Lamasbella – who gained 2.4 million followers on Instagram and 4.3 million on TikTok after she began posting videos mimicking the Kardashians during the pandemic – crossed a significant threshold, having launched a tracksuit line. And so far, the influencer has seen revenue in the six figures.

“You’re going to see a lot more creators being their own brands and bringing to life their own products,” says Sofia Hernandez, global head of business marketing at TikTok. “What’s happening, is [that brands have] shifted from this place of handing a script and a cheque to influencers or creators to a place of really significant authenticity. I work with brands and creators all over the world, and what I’m

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hearing regularly is that creators have never been truer to what they stand for. There are creators that are turning down $100,000 contracts because what the brand is asking them to do or say does not fit with who they are.”

To marketers, Earle suggests building trust going forward.

“A brand will come to me and be like, ‘We really love Roxy.

We love her style. We love what she stands for. And here are the 300 guidelines we’d like her to create great content within.’ By the end of it, I put something out that doesn’t even feel like me anymore. And authenticity is what you’re really paying for.

So don’t spend the big bucks bringing in the people that you think can move the needle on your marketing plan and then handcuff them.”

Whether it’s the popularity of Logan Paul and KSI’s Prime energy drink this year or Kat and Latisha Clark – TikTok’s top creators of 2023 – launching a successful podcast Basically Besties, influencers are putting their entrepreneurial skills to use.

“And the opportunity that exists for brands is to offer more instances where the community can create with you. It’s scary for brands, less scary for creators. But it’s something we’re starting to see in the brand space,” says Hernandez.

“When we first started, we got called bloggers and we didn’t have blogs,” Earle jokes. “We have influence, and understand that we are a business. I’m not just a collaborator with Joe Fresh, I’m designing my collection. It’s no longer that the brand knows more than us. We need the brands, but they need us too.”

and Disney+ rolled out its own ad tier in November of the same year, each entering a marketplace that includes other AVOD platforms like CBC Gem and Pluto TV. Media buyers see opportunity within the AVOD market due to a growing audience, reduced ad clutter compared to linear TV, and increased targeting and measurement capabilities.

Buyers also speculate there could be new ways to engage with consumers via AVOD that aren’t available in broadcast TV – such as paying a premium so that when users open a streaming platform on their TV, an ad could be the first impression delivered to them.

The adoption of adsupported tiers has advertisers equally excited to pair their work alongside popular, premium titles, especially as more viewers drift away from traditional TV in favour of streaming platforms that have steadily risen in popularity for years.

“It’s unlike anything else. They already have an ingrained viewership,”

BY ANDREW JEFFREY Sarah Thompson, president, media at Dentsu. “We have platforms that have built audiences over time, and now they’re putting in place advertising opportunities. So that changes the nature Over the last year or so, nearly every major streaming of the game.” platform in Canada moved to offer a more affordable The number of Canadians who watch streaming TV ad-supported tier to subscribers. This, after several has increased 57% in the last two years, according to years of players like Netflix showing no intention Vividata’s October 2023 study of Canadian consumers. of monetizing their platforms this way, with CEO Netflix and Prime Video were rated as the two most Reed Hastings going as far as saying it didn’t want to popular streaming platforms in that study. Crave participate in advertising’s “exploitation” of viewers. reports that it has 3.1 million subscribers, while CBC Prime Video is up next to become an advertisingsays on-demand video views on Gem were up 27% in based video on demand (AVOD) service, with plans the fall of 2023 (versus the same period last year) and to introduce ads in early 2024, on the heels of other time spent jumped 20%. Meanwhile, Statista forecasts subscription-based platforms previously doing the that the number of users in Canada’s AVOD market is same. Netflix debuted an ad-supported tier in Canada expected to reach 24.3 million by 2028. in November 2022; Crave followed suit in June 2023;

The golden age of

stream-vertising Media giants and media buyers dive into the proliferation of ad tiers across Canadian entertainment in the last year.

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In Netflix’s recent Q3 financial report, the streamer noted that in countries with an ad-tier option, 30% of sign-ups were for its ad-supported plan, and added that there’s more work to be done to scale the vertical.

The company said it hadn’t planned for ad revenue to be material to its business in 2023, and that it’s still laying the foundation for what it believes “should be a multi-billion dollar revenue stream over time.”

The ad units often available to advertisers on streamers include pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll, across TV, mobile apps, OTT devices and web browsers. Streamers are often also able to offer advanced data for targeted ads that are customized for specific demographics, viewing habits, programming themes and niche genres. Many of these streamers can also monitor feedback and respond to issues when it comes to viewer experiences, such as

“We have platforms that have built out audiences over time, and now they’re putting in place advertising opportunities.

So that changes a bit of the nature of the game.”

Sarah Thompson, Dentsu

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frequency, quality and suitability of ads.

For the Bell-owned Canadian streamer Crave, advertisers can purchase ads programmatically from the platform’s English and French catalog. Advertisers can also choose between direct programming guaranteed and non-guaranteed options, with targeted messages.

“Ads can be targeted to audiences and can include geo-targeting on Crave,” Bell Media VP of advertising sales and partnerships Perry MacDonald says, adding that Canadian advertisers can leverage first-party and third-party data through Bell’s DSP. In November, Netflix looked back at the first year of its ad tier in Canada. It said an average of four minutes of ads per hour currently air on Netflix, but it varies based on the title playing, with ads selected for viewers based on their interactions with the platform, their general location and other information they’ve shared with the company.

The streamer said it’s been working with Microsoft

Advertising to elevate measurement capabilities and roll out third-party verification. It’s also expanding the variety of ad lengths, as well as the capability to target mobile devices, more specific genres, time of day and audience demographics.

Looking ahead to 2024, Netflix plans to offer an ad-free episode for users who have watched three consecutive ones of a title, as well as the capability to showcase QR codes in advertising creative running on Netflix. Additionally, after making some of its content available for sponsorships in the U.S. in 2023, that practice will expand globally in 2024.

Elsewhere within the AVOD space, national broadcaster CBC has had its own AVOD platform since 2018 in Gem, along with French-language streamer ICI Tou.tv. “We are currently enjoying record account sign-ups for our free tier, which validates both the quality of the offering but shows how consumers are looking for more cost-effective forms of high quality entertainment,” says Gigi Forth, CBC and RadioCanada Media Solutions executive director of national and corporate partnership sales. “Ads are a part of this free experience and it’s a value exchange a large segment of our audiences prefer over paying for a premium, ad-free experience.”

Aside from standard video ads that run between six seconds and a minute, the CBC says it’s also experimenting with offering advertisers longer-form mid-rolls and end-rolls, and that it supplies ad units like big box and double big box. But more than that, the CBC offers sponsorships of its content collections and specific shows, as well as branded content campaigns with full-service production and tile placements, and client-supplied long-form video.

Some in the industry believe the arrival of advertising could lead to forward-looking streamers and brands offering ads that aren’t bound by the typical limits of linear TV. Publicis Media Exchange Canada president Jeff Thibodeau, for one, says he foresees novel marketing strategies like sponsoring ad-free blocks on digital platforms, or some kind of in-video activation or conversion, where if you see a product on screen, you can then select it, and have the option to purchase.

“You have to look to create value for the customer.

Obviously, the value right now is the exchange of ‘You’re going to watch ads and you’re going to get the content at a discount rate.’ Are there ways that you can reduce the amount of ads in a block and create value for customers?” Thibodeau says. “And [how can streamers add] more interactivity? How can I engage with the ad or the content in a way that linear television and the existing marketplace does not [allow]?”

However, Thibodeau does emphasize that, for now, platforms are simply trying to stand up to adsupported video, which has been difficult enough in the past year.

Initially, investment in AVOD upon Netflix’s introduction of an ad tier was slow, says PHD Canada’s VP of investment Melissa Kotsopoulos. She expects this to change, and adds that any advertiser would be remiss not to supplement linear TV buys with AVOD. But the number of competitors in the market and the fragmented nature of streaming can slow investment.

“It’s such a fragmented space. There are so many different AVOD platforms and services now that you would have to really layer on a lot of different streaming services in order to achieve any type of scale,” Kotsopoulos says.

Thibodeau agrees that the challenges thus far for marketers on AVODs have been scale, and the fragmented nature of viewing streaming entertainment.

“It’s becoming more of a challenge for us to keep a holistic view of a digital video consumer, much less an entire video consumer across their linear and digital experience,” Thibodeau says.

Thompson adds that the lack of a set standard between streamers on a host of issues – analytics, ad load, approach, general expectations, process – leads to further fragmentation between AVODs, and creates a challenge for advertisers to avoid duplicating reach and irritating viewers who watch titles across multiple platforms on the same day. Another difference in how streamers operate is when some platforms want to approve the creative of ads that run on their service.

Audience attrition is one more potential issue facing AVODs, due to the ease with which streaming subscriptions can be cancelled, and rising household costs in a struggling Canadian economy. Attrition can also happen due to changes in the kinds of content streamers are offering on their platforms, as buyers note that consumers often feel a stronger connection to the titles they’re viewing on streamers, than the platforms themselves.

“Is the affinity to Prime, Disney or Netflix, or is it to the content that is contained within it? I would always [say] we, as viewers, go after content. And it’s very easy to cancel,” Thompson says.

Another major challenge advertisers face on AVOD platforms is one that persists across all types of entertainment, Thompson shares: attention.

Viewer habits while watching TV, whether it’s linear

networks or modern streamers, includes looking at a phone or going to the kitchen, and their attention isn’t 100% on screen all of the time. There’s only so much attentive reach, and it varies between watching video on a television versus a mobile device.

“You have to start thinking about media psychology or behaviour, thinking about ad load, how people transverse these platforms, how we actually consume content,” Thompson says.

AVOD’s growth in the Canadian market has been steady, with nearly every major player now incorporating advertising. But Prime Video’s introduction of ads, especially, is seen as a “gamechanger,” multiple media buyers say.

Though Amazon hasn’t released much detail on Prime Video’s AVOD plan, the company has already stated it will aim to include “meaningfully fewer ads”

“Are there ways that [streamers] can reduce the amount of ads in a block...? How can I engage with the ad or content in a way that linear TV does not [allow?]”

Jeff Thibodeau, Publicis

than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.

That said, while Netflix and Disney+ introduced ad tiers that users could choose to register for, Prime Video will instead serve advertisements by default, requiring users to take action to switch their subscription plan if they choose to remove ads, achieving significant scale from the jump. Thompson also notes that Prime Video’s connection across its users’ Prime accounts could allow for more refined audience targeting.

“If you look at some of these platforms, they all have the ability to understand who their audience is,” Thompson says. “There’s a huge advantage to that, because we’re connected by some information.”

But as viewer habits and the ability for brands to engage with consumers in new ways becomes possible, Kotsopoulos emphasizes that there is no great difference. “We talk about AVOD versus linear TV in these two different terms, but really to the consumer, it’s the same thing. It’s watching TV.” Winter 2024

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MARKE

MO TERS O

F THE

YEAR

What two words make up success in the past year? Adaptability and innovation. Marketing leaders have had to contend with rapidly changing landscapes by adapting strategies and cultivating approaches that resonate with evolving consumer needs. Not to mention, technological advancements. It’s no easy task. And yet, the 2023 Marketers of the Year are being recognized for embodying just that. KFC’s Katherine Bond-Debicki inherited one of the most established, recognizable brands in Canada’s QSR market, and still, she managed to innovate. Jess Spaulding has been injecting joy, celebration and purpose into the brands she oversees at PepsiCo. Devorah Lithwick’s tenure at Bell spans pivotal moments that have amplified community engagement. Desjardins’ Valérie Sapin has been steering her marketing team to take the brand beyond Quebec. Turn the page to read more about this year’s leaders.

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Katherine BondDebicki breathes new life into KFC brand How the marketer is helping the QSR make a comeback in Canada by reinvesting in brand-building and tapping into cultural moments.

BY MEGAN HAYNES

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n Canada, KFC has a unique brand recognition problem.

The QSR’s giant red-and-white bucket, Colonel Sanders and “Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan are all widely recognizable touchpoints. But compared to its global counterparts, the fried chicken chain’s Canadian arm struggles with market penetration, says Katherine Bond-Debicki, CMO of the Yum! Brands subsidiary.

In most countries, KFC lands in the top-three for QSR market share, and it’s the fastest growing chain in several regions – not just by sales but also footprint. In comparison, while KFC is the top fried chicken restaurant in Canada, it barely cracks the top-10 in the QSR category as a whole.

“The Canadian market, along with the U.S., is probably the most hyper competitive QSR environment we see in the world,” Bond-Debicki says. “You have big burger boys, but you also have this rapid proliferation of fried chicken specialists.

And what makes North America a little bit unique in that specialty zone is they actually have scale.”

This created a growth problem for the marketer: how do you act as a challenger brand when you’re already a highly

Above, clockwise from far left: Katherine BondDebicki has an agenda: to revive the KFC brand and its signature touchpoints, like the iconic red-and-white bucket, for audiences in Canada; the “Sorry, Utensils” platform is an investment in the QSR’s brand by BondDebecki; when KFC killed off its old fries, and introduced a new potato chip, the brand bid condolences during a live-streamed “fry funeral.”

recognizable name with a strong legacy?

Bond-Debicki began her career at P&G in Ireland before joining KFC as a brand manager in 2014. She moved up the ranks before returning to Canada in 2017 as a senior brand manager. In 2021, BondDebicki took on the mantle of CMO to lead the entire marketing portfolio, including brand/retail communications, omni-channel marketing, as well as food R&D. At the time of her promotion, the company as a whole was reflecting on its challenges and identifying the path forward. COVID-19 put a renewed focus on family dinner, and KFC benefited from the trend. However, “as we come out of the pandemic, we know those habits are going to shift,” she says. “How do we take the power of [those habits], but ensure we keep on top of the relevance of how people consume today?”

The franchise had previously been hyper-focused on retail communication to the detriment of brand

marketing, and Bond-Debicki recognized a need for an overall shift.

“Retail is always urgent and important,” she says, and, as a result, brand communication had been neglected for “years.”

“In my very honest opinion, we didn’t have a clear brand identity,” she adds. “We had a lot of very powerful, unique brand codes that we leveraged to make sure we had attribution. But we were inconsistent with how we showed up emotionally, visually, verbally.”

Her strategy started with a re-organization of the 20-person marketing team splitting the retail/ brand communications pillar in two, with BondDebicki creating roles focused exclusively on brandbuilding. Budgets and resources were shuffled to make a focus on brand communications possible, which meant the other pillars – retail, omni-channel and R&D – had to do with less.

“We had to look at where we could reallocate resources to invest in brand. That meant being more efficient and focused on where we spend, not just from a communications end, but across the entire marketing mix.”

The company’s foray into brand-building started in 2022. It picked up the “Love at First Bite” platform from the U.K. office, with a campaign running in Canada on TV, digital and through an influencer push. With creative from Mother London, the creative focused on the anticipatory moment before someone eats a piece of fried chicken. While the message resonated with Canadians, the creative also fit in with Bond-Debicki’s broader plan to refocus on brand-building.

A year later, in September 2023, KFC launched a made-in-Canada brand platform – it’s first major brand push in years. Working with new creative AOR Courage, as well as media buyer Wavemaker and PR firm Narrative, the QSR rolled out an apology campaign for utensils.

Leaning on the iconic “Finger Lickin’ Good” slogan (which Bond-Debicki helped “retire” during the pandemic for obvious reasons), the “Sorry Utensils” campaign “channels the spirit of the Colonel,” she explains.

Told from the perspective of abandoned forks and knives, with the song “All Out of Love” playing forlornly in the background, the creative is cheeky and doesn’t take itself seriously.

With a youthful and diverse cast, “Sorry Utensils” ran on TV, print, radio, OOH and digital, and was specifically designed to speak to both new and younger Canadians to recruit them into the brand Winter 2024

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and drive consideration. The campaign ran for five weeks and was extended for an additional seven to support the launch of its chicken nuggets. It will continue to be used as the broader brand platform into 2024 and beyond.

Even with a renewed focus on brand-building, Bond-Debicki recognizes the need for retail communications.

Fitting the challenger mentality, many of its recent executions have been buzzy stunts targeted at niche audiences – transforming the underside of a highway overpass into a winter basketball court to win over Raptors’ fans; turning Colonel Sanders into a character in video game Street Fighter 6 to attract gamers; or hijacking the conversation around the debut of McDonald’s chicken sandwhich to lure its competitor’s customers via “Fixed It.” “Historically, our consumer base has been grounded in families in Canada,” Bond-Debicki says. “We were absolutely a family-centred brand

and a sharing business for decades.” That success on family-sized meals has come at a cost – there’s a perception that, since KFC feeds many, it’s expensive (especially if you’re eating for one). To unlock incremental growth, the team built out the value messaging and conveyed that it offers affordable meal options as well as family-sized fare.

KFC saw big success with its value campaign, “Not Everybody’s Happy, But You Will Be,” where it promoted “Twosdays” (the brand’s Tuesday $2.99 promo menu) with a tongue-in-cheek campaign that brought the Colonel back in a big way.

The long-dormant mascot came out of retirement to admonish KFC for selling his chicken at such a low price. He took to social media to complain directly to consumers, he defaced billboards, and he even took out a full-page ad in The Globe and Mail to rant about the pricing strategy. The campaign was built on the message that the value was so good, that while the consumer would be pleased,

Above, counter clockwise from top left: Every Tuesday, KFC has been selling its chicken tenders at outrageously low prices, much to the dismay of the Colonel; the brand paid tribute to a fellow “king of buckets” (former Raptor Lebron James) after the athlete broke the NBA’s all-time scoring goal; immersing the brand into gaming culture, KFC brought the Colonel to life in Street Fighter 6.

someone was losing out.

Launched in April 2023, the “Not Everyone’s Happy” campaign was the brand’s most successful promotional vehicle to date, Bond-Debicki says.

KFC not only saw a 100% increase in value consideration, but also saw a double-digit increase in quality perception.

The platform was revived in the summer to help promote the season-long $5 sandwich campaign, with the focus shifting from the Colonel to its competitors (including Wendy’s and Burger King) being unhappy. “It was one of our longest value campaigns ever,” Bond-Debicki shares.

The sandwich push, which ran on TV, OOH, digital and print, was also part of a larger effort to unlock new meal occasions and tap into the burgeoning chicken sandwich wars. The “summer of sandwiches,” as Bond-Debicki calls it, featured new flavours – including a limited time BBQ – as well as a promotional focus on Twisters (wraps), a product

that has long been on the menu, but rarely received marketing support.

As for its fries, KFC decided to yank the lessthan-desired product entirely and replace it with a entirely new seasoned fry. After receiving negative critique from consumers on the menu item, the QSR set up a mock funeral for its “soggy fries” that people don’t seem to have much love for.

Canadians had the opportunity to pay their “final disrespects” as a Colonel Sanders-branded hearse drove around Toronto proclaiming “R.I.P. old KFC fries.” Those who were unable to bid their farewell in person, were invited to tune into a live-streamed funeral. The campaign was designed by Courage to have fun with the vitriol that has been levied against the brand, leveraging real tweets and critiques to bring the idea to life.

Going into 2024, Bond-Debicki says the plan is to test out even more menu options, and other similar fun brand partnerships to lure sandwich lovers in.

“I think we have a menu modernization job to do,” she says. “Particularly around how we wrap our chicken in modern sides and packaging to ensure we’re relevant, to ensure we’re permissible and we make people feel really good when they eat us. We have ‘pride in fried.’ That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have choice.”

So, alongside its renewed focus on wraps, the restaurant also launched boneless nuggets in September 2023 – the first time it had that product on the menu – and increased its focus on lowercalorie options. It also played with some fun limitedtime offers, such as a gravy-lover’s sandwich for the 2022 holiday season, and in 2023 it launched the “Festive Chicken Sandwich,” which blends holiday flavours such as cranberry and stuffing with the KFC fried chicken.

The brand is also looking at freshening up its retail footprint, exploring an increased presence in downtown urban cores – where it’s target demographic of both new and young Canadians increasingly live – as well as giving some of its 642 restaurants a new look.

“I think, without a doubt, we have some dated restaurants that need to be modernized,” BondDebicki says. “We have some restaurants out there that are so old, they’re trendy again.”

The CMO is excited about the future of the brand and Canada. “We’re only getting started,” she explains. “It’s not just a marketing journey, it’s absolutely going to be through the business. And I can’t wait for people to see that transformation start to hit market.”

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Jess Spaulding roots PepsiCo brands in culture Since arriving in Canada over a year ago, the American-born CMO has infused a mix of emotion, joy and purpose into the CPG’s flagship brands BY WENDY KAN

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o hear Jess Spaulding, the CMO for PepsiCo Foods Canada, talk about her work is to understand where the joy, celebratory spirit and push for purpose behind the brands she oversees comes from. “We are stewards of these beautiful brands and the fandom that comes with these brands,” she says, referring to snacks such as Lay’s, Ruffles and Cheetos.

“When I think of what we get to do, it feels like a win.”

Spaulding began her career with PepsiCo Foods in 2009 in the U.S., where she’s from. She was head of Cheetos marketing at Frito-Lay as part of the North American marketing team before moving to take on her current position in April 2022.

In her role, she manages Frito-Lay and Quaker in Canada. The former includes flagship brands such as Lay’s, Doritos, Tostitos, Cheetos and Ruffles, while the latter includes Quaker Life, Quaker Chewy, Quaker Harvest Crunch and Crispy Minis. Additional brands include PopCorners, Stacy’s and Simply.

One of Spaulding’s first campaigns after taking up her Canadian role was created with the intention to be a “brand act, versus an ad,” she says. In the fall of 2022, she worked with agency Citizen Relations to erect a 17-foot statue of fingertips holding a Cheetos puff, covered in orange Cheetos dust, a.k.a. Cheetle, in the town of Cheadle, Alberta.

“We didn’t know what the reaction would be,” she says of the “Cheetle in Cheadle” campaign, which went viral and attracted the attention of Canadians, international visitors and even actor Don Cheadle on social media. It also picked up nearly two dozen industry accolades such as Silver and Bronze Lions at Cannes, Gold prizes at strategy’s Marketing Awards Winter 2024

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and Media Innovation Awards, and also led to a Gold PR Agency of the Year win for Citizen Relations.

“The ‘Cheetle’ struck that right balance of celebrating the mischievousness and fun of the brand, and showing in a single act what people love about it,” she explains.

Similarly, Spaulding and her team struck the right balance for Crispy Minis in the summer, developing a campaign with Schitt’s Creek star Annie Murphy.

In the spot, Murphy calls herself a “serious” actress and claims there’s no snack that could make her be a pitchperson or use an ad slogan. She then inserts herself into people’s private situations, like restaurant lunches, while using what she claims is her own new catchphrase, “That’s crispy.”

The creative, by agency Behaviour, is a departure from the brand’s previous strategy of focusing on functional benefits, such as health and convenience, to one focusing on emotional benefits. In other words, more joy.

Creating a community around PepsiCo’s brands and sharing a sense of purpose with fans are also integral to Spaulding’s work. That’s why in 2022, when the Canadian men’s team qualified for the World Cup in Qatar, for the first time since 1986, Frito-Lay jumped at the opportunity to partner with FIFA and celebrate the occasion with “Made for the Moment.”

“Canada has a unique relationship with soccer, given the diversity and the number of people with roots beyond its borders, and who have a passion for the ‘other’ home team,” she says. Indeed, without a national team in past World Cups, Canadians are used to cheering for another team, or multiple other teams, from countries where they have family roots or ties.

The integrated campaign by Citizen Relations, OMD, Praxis, GSP, ShakerMaker and Mark IV included 30-second and 60-second spots.

There was also an OOH takeover on digital boards and radio broadcasts every time Canada scored, a merch collaboration with Bauer X, a pop-up store, influencers, and digital and social media buys. It also featured a mural project by two local artists – Carson Ting and Adrian Hayles – in Vancouver and Toronto, and the merch collab showcased 13

local Canadian artists who designed a jersey for the national team (since kit supplier Nike didn’t create one). Spaulding says the collection allowed fans to show their support for the team, while also creating a positive impact by supporting creatives – proceeds went to The Remix Project, a Toronto-based multidisciplinary arts training program for youth.

“We really wanted to showcase that the country

Above: Crispy Mini’s campaign featuring Annie Murphy is a departure from the snack brand’s previous functional messaging; Cheetle dust is proudly put on full display in Cheadle, ON.

and the team were ready for this moment and the pride that exists,” she says. “We created a love letter to what makes Canada so special.”

After finding ways for fans to rally around men’s soccer, Spaulding turned her attention to women’s sports with the “Play Loud” campaign.

In celebration of newly-retired Canadian soccer icon Christine Sinclair, the Frito-Lay brand Cracker Jack (long associated with sports) was reimagined Winter 2024

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Right: Spaulding has made sports a focus for PepsiCo, from sponsoring FIFA World Cup to rebranding Cracker Jack to Cracker Jill in celebration of Christine Sinclair.

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with a “Cracker Jill” version of the snack in mid-2023. The LTO also included a multi-year partnership with the U.S.based Women’s Sports Foundation, where the non-profit’s effort to expand access and opportunities for girls and women are extending to Canada as well.

However, Spaulding’s efforts to support women didn’t start at soccer (which she also played in college). While based in the U.S. with PepsiCo Foods, she worked on the launch of the Stacy’s Rise Project, which champions and supports women business owners, and which was born from the Stacy’s Pita Chips brand (founded by entrepreneur Stacy Madison).

Spaulding then helped expand the program to Canada in 2022 – given that women-owned businesses in this country only receive 4% of venture capital funding – by partnering with the Women’s Enterprise Organizations of Canada. The number of Canadian recipients and funds have increased, with the project now awarding five founders a $25,000 grant, along with mentorship and community resources.

The second class will be announced in early 2024.

For every campaign, Spaulding says her approach goes back to understanding the values of the brand and the role they play for the consumer.

“We are a bit obsessed, because it’s hard to break through in today’s landscape,” says Spaulding, who oversees a team of 40. “We have to be specific and surprising. We bring consumers a ton of joy, sometimes in challenging times, and I think that’s a role we should play.”

“It means you have to understand your fans and tap into their passion points,” she adds. “Across the portfolio, brands play unique roles in people’s lives and in different occasions. And we need to have a clear strategy and foundation. The brands have a lane within fans’ broader lives. And we have to do what the consumer values us for.”

This insight wasn’t always part of her line of thinking: her “aha moment” arrived while working on Gatorade. “I saw how the brand was rooted in culture,” she says. “In sports, you get to understand the love and you tap into why people love you.”

But do today’s uncertain economic times test that love? Spaulding believes her brands are well-

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positioned during times of uncertainty due to a shared philosophy across the company, coupled with strong leadership teams. “The people are the greatest assets,” she says. “And brand is the value engine of the company.”

Spaulding herself feels well-supported in her role. When she arrived in Canada to take on the CMO position, the evolution of having marketing at the table to drive business growth, and investing in brands that are value drivers, was already underway.

She’s also bolstered by PepsiCo’s strong work culture “of curiosity and celebration” which “makes [the marketing team] feel part of… what brands are able to do for the overall growth of the business.”

With so many beloved brands, Spaulding knows she and her team have a great responsibility in creating “bold, ambitious and confident” work.

“I continue to be on a journey of celebrating what makes Canada unique,” she says. “We can continue to contribute to things being Canadian-made and not an extension of a different market. That’s what I think about most: how to elevate the work of the team and the global brand through Canadian-led work.”

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Devorah Lithwick makes Bell better. Obviously.

BCE’s chief brand officer is driving growth through a vision that supersedes the day-to-day.

BY BRENDAN CHRISTIE

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ell occupies a unique place in the Canadian media landscape.

As one of Canada’s largest communications companies, it exists on the cutting edge of technology.

But it’s also a brand with roots that stretch back to a patent issued to Alexander Graham Bell in 1877.

And, really, it’s not just one entity, it’s a collection of strong individual brands that coexist under an umbrella that manifests in different ways across the country. This is not a brand for the faint of heart.

Making sense of it all is Devorah Lithwick, Bell’s SVP and chief brand officer. Lithwick oversees all brand and marketing communications activities, including Bell’s digital and social media platforms, corporate and product advertising campaigns, as well as sponsorship and events programs.

Lithwick joined Bell in 2006 as VP of marketing

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communications, becoming SVP of brand for Bell in 2017.

She arrived in time to play a role in what has become one of the most important evolutions in the brand’s history. In fact, Lithwick calls 2008’s “Today Just Got Better” platform the “north star” that her team and the broader comms group continue to follow to this day. And, as a position that’s built on service – focusing on how interactions with the brand should always make a customer’s day better, she explains – you’d be hardpressed to think of a reason to stray from it.

But that’s not to say the brand has stagnated over the years. There’s just been more evolution than revolution.

“It’s about how we get a little bit more purposeful and still drive the holistic consistency of that platform,” she explains. “How do we better leverage our assets and our sponsorships?”

Asking those sorts of questions led to the creation of Bell for Better in 2021 – an umbrella that covers the company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives – and a series of new and engaging ways to tell stories. But Lithwick is cautious about change for change’s sake. For her, the real secret to Bell’s success lies in its consistency.

“When things are struggling, sometimes the brand is the easiest place to look,” she says. “It’s easy to say, ‘Well, you really need to refresh the brand.’ But I think that, organizationally, we are strongly led by our brand philosophy. We see benefit and relevancy in the platform that we’ve established. There have definitely been tweaks over time, but I see the brand as on a bit of a trajectory.”

Bell is an historic brand with an

Right: Lithwick has steered clear of making sweeping changes to Bell’s branding over the years, favouring holistic consistency and being purposeful with its creative, such as this billboard simply promoting “Canada’s fastest Internet and WiFi.”; Virgin’s “Obviously” master campaign brought humour to the brand while also portraying it as an affordable option for Canadians.

established consumer segment, she explains, so consistency remains the critical driver. But don’t expect a one-size-fitsall approach. On the Virgin side of the house, for example, change was exactly what was needed. So, in 2023, the Virgin brand underwent a visual transformation and messaging shift to better align with an updated service offering and wider target audience.

“We saw a greater opportunity,” explains Lithwick of the decision. “We were looking at the broader marketplace to expand our target audience [and go] beyond what Virgin initially was when we launched in Canada – more of a youthfocused, edgy brand. Given that we widened the aperture of who we wanted to attract, we felt it was an opportune time for us to change the visual look and feel.”

The decision was made to drive a more value-price message and reinvigorate the brand with fresh creative. The end result was the “Obviously” campaign from Zulu Alpha Kilo.

While, at press time, the campaign was pulled by Virgin out of respect of the sudden passing of actor Andre Braugher (who worked as a spokesman for the brand), the work resonated thanks to its humour and quirkiness, and widened the lens to speak to Canadian consumers of all ethnicities (in five different languages), with agencies Lg2 and Dyversity handling the French, Hinglish and Chineselanguage versions of the platform. “Obviously” highlighted a simple value proposition for the brand: that it offers affordable, unlimited nationwide 5G data for Canadians in today’s difficult economic climate.

And perhaps, after consistency,

simplicity is the second golden rule. Lithwick says that while good creative like “Obviously” is partially instinctual – she feels it in her gut when it’s right – the greatest creative ideas are usually the simplest; the ones in which the messaging is clear.

But ask any yogi and you’ll

find that clarity isn’t something that just magically appears. It’s only realized through a slow and thoughtful process, and the Bell team takes a very meticulous and structured approach when it comes to its work.

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at everything from SMS messages right up to big TV campaigns. Then there are annual agency reviews, during which, she says, “we put everything up on the wall, and honestly talk with each other on what works and what doesn’t, where we have gaps and where we need to make refinements.”

The process involves a lot of conversation and debate, but all final decisions filter through a small leadership team. “When fewer people are making the final decisions, you drive consistency,” she explains. “If you start to say, ‘Well, this business unit is responsible for their work, and it doesn’t get reviewed by a centralized brand office,’ that’s

where the brand starts to fray.”

The team also doesn’t like leaving anything to chance, that’s partly why Bell brought media buying in-house. It just made sense, says Lithwick, given the amount of first-party data the company has access to. “It allowed us to not just be more agile given the competitive nature of the business we’re in, but also to better leverage the data that we have to be more strategic and nimble in our digital media activity,” she explains, noting that it also allowed the team to find

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savings and enhance productivity.

Beyond her day-to-day, Lithwick has also been a key driver behind the aforementioned Bell for Better. The initiative works under three key pillars – communities, workplace and world – with programs that have included partnerships with entities like Skateboard Canada, Swimming Canada and others.

Above: Lithwick is a key architect behind the Bell for Better platform, which acts as an umbrella for the brand’s ESG work; The Bell Inbound Assist is a newcomer grant program done in partnership with the Toronto Raptors.

“Bell has worked with many causes and groups over the years, but it wanted to establish an appropriate umbrella for all of our ESG work,” Lithwick says. “[Bell for Better has] been a fantastic initiative in terms of an upper brand funnel. It allows us to tell the story a little bit more clearly to consumers and businesses alike,” she explains.

“It’s making a difference, and we’re seeing positive brand attributes increasing for those who are familiar with our program.”

One of the company’s most

established initiatives, “Bell Let’s Talk,” began back in 2010. While it started as an effort to reduce the stigma around mental health issues, in 2023 it evolved to talk more about the associations that Bell supports. Lithwick calls that a “good news story” as the need in the space has progressed beyond simple awareness.

“Now it’s about how do we affect positive change in a world where people are more open?” she says. “How do we engage more awareness about the need for support? How can you help yourself and others?”

The brand started to use the activity around “Bell Let’s Talk Day” to continue amplification of the partners in the mix. What you’ll start to see as we head into 2024 is us handing over our megaphone to allow for the various associations that are doing good in the community to talk about what they do.”

In November, Bell and the Toronto Raptors kicked off a new partnership via the Bell Inbound Assist program, a three-year commitment to highlight the positive role basketball can play in helping newcomers feel at home in Canada. Earlier this year, Bell also partnered with Total Mom Pitch, Canada’s largest small business grants program. Expect growth on the ESG front to continue.

As for what comes next for the Bell brand, writ large, Lithwick says she’s as excited as anyone to see what the future holds.

“For me, it’s about how we leverage our brand to continue to deliver compelling storytelling, and convey to consumers that we’re the better choice,” she explains. “Part of what I love is the fact that I always have to manage change, and the business is so unpredictable. My focus might be materially different tomorrow.”

Devorah, we’ve always known how amazing you are.

Now the world does too.

Congratulations from the entire Bell family and your partners.

Valérie Sapin engineers Desjardins to last

A year into her tenure, the marketer is already making massive strides outside of Quebec to reach national growth.

BY WILL NOVOSEDLIK

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alérie Sapin couldn’t have engineered her career with greater finesse. Maybe that’s because she was trained as an engineer – an unusual background for a marketer, but one that prepared her for her current role as VP of the marketing expertise center at Desjardins Group.

She came to the position in late 2022 with a mix of tech, agency-side strategic planning and corporate brand management skills. Her career began in technology, where she spent the first four years of her professional life moving up the marketing ladder

at Softkit and then Autodesk. She followed that with 11 years as head of strategic planning at Cossette, where she earned her agency-side cred. And that was followed by 12 years on the client-side as CMO at Énergir (formerly Gas Métro), Québec’s pre-eminent natural gas provider.

When it’s pointed out to her that, in the marketing world, such tenures are an eternity, her response is: “I approached my career as a marathon, not as a sprint.”

Before joining Desjardins, Sapin helped rebrand Gas Métro to become Énergir, which, in Québec,

was a “love” brand. But even a love brand can be transformed. “We were actually able to elevate the love by changing the brand. It was a success, often held up as an example of how to do it right in a sector as complex as energy,” says Sapin.

After 12 years, Sapin made the move into the world of finance. Her role was to run Desjardins’ inhouse marketing agency, applying her learnings from both the agency and brand sides of the business. “I felt I was putting together the best of two worlds and two jobs that I deeply loved, so it was the perfect match for me,” says Sapin. “And [Desjardins is] another ‘love’ brand, in another complex sector.”

The size of the department is around 320 people, including media planning, media buying,

content strategy, social media, creative, mass and personalized communications experts, as well as sponsorship and events. The team is dedicated to the Desjardins brand and its different lines of business (i.e., personal and business financial service, wealth management, life and health insurance, property and casualty insurance). And,

during the last 12 months, Sapin reorganized the team into multidisciplinary units to maximise synergies.

She also introduced new ways of working by taking inspiration from the “agile” method, an approach developed in the world of product and service innovation. “We started with pilot projects at the beginning of the year and the results were impressive, sometimes cutting time-to-market needed to launch campaigns by half. We are now extending that throughout the team,” explains Sapin.

Desjardins still works with external agencies, including its AOR the Humanise Collective, comprised of Bleublancrouge for creative and Glassroom for media. “As we internalized the different functions, we were looking for an outside agency ready to work differently and focus on the concept of ‘one team’ rather than a traditional client-agency relationship.”

“I need to feel that I’m working for the greater good,” Sapin says on why she joined Desjardins.

“Being a co-operative so focused on the community, checked all the boxes for me.” Which leads to her biggest challenge: growing the brand outside of la belle province.

In October 2023, the brand’s insurance arm looked to make a big impression in English Canada, and so Sapin’s team launched the “Giant” campaign, developed in collaboration with Bleublancrouge Toronto and Glassroom. Shopping intent research highlighted the importance for people to have an insurer that is truly caring and people-focused, which is in line with Desjardins DNA, says Sapin.

The creative showcases the brand’s caregiver persona as an “insurance company with a heart so big, it shows” and “the spot features a large

Above: The insurance provider channeled giants helping out regular folk in creative that celebrated its 125 years of being a “caregiver”; Left: Desjardins promotes itself as a brand with heart in ads that focus on its community-led values.

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Congratulations to a team that always pushes for big ideas.

Being named a Marketer of the Year is huge, huge but it’s not surprising.

Here’s to more big and exciting things to come.

Above and below: As the brand ventures further outside of Quebec, Sapin has been focusing efforts on shining a light on the community behind hockey and the entrepreneurs behind small businesses via sports sponsorships and its GoodSpark Grants program.

and caring guardian that personifies the brand of Desjardins Insurance, assisting Canadians with stalled vehicles, road safety and property protection.

Just another day at the office for an insurer who truly cares about its customers,” she explains.

Community focus is supported by the brand’s sponsorship of Sportnet’s Monday Night Hockey, which shines a light on the people who make community hockey happen – the parents, organizers, Zamboni drivers, referees. “Just as we know small businesses are the heart of communities, we know those people are the heart of the hockey community,” says Sapin.

Another way it’s demonstrating community involvement outside of Québec is through the Desjardins GoodSpark Grants program, which offers $20,000 to small businesses and began in 2021.

“With the GoodSpark Grants we are shining a light on small businesses and their importance to their communities,” asserts Sapin. “We’ve supported it with a campaign and with media sponsorship of The Amazing Race Canada. For that we created a segment called ‘The Amazing Small Business Tour’ in which series host Jon Montgomery travelled the

country meeting GoodSpark Grants recipients and sharing their stories.”

There are two waves to the marketing campaign for the GoodSpark Grants. The first is an initial call for businesses to apply for the grant in the fall, and in the spring grant recipients are celebrated for the good work they do for their customers and neighbours. Both waves include a mix of TV, digital, radio and social media placements.

As a result of these efforts, research is showing that, outside of Québec, the co-operative model is strongly associated with caring. That brand link is getting stronger, shares Sapin.

Now the challenge is to change the brand’s perception from being seen mostly as a home and auto insurance provider to being understood as a full-service bank, with a wide range of products.

At the end of 2023, the brand started testing the addition of a signature highlighting the breadth of its products and services in select communications.

It has included a closing panel featuring its different services in campaigns for programs such as GoodSpark Grants, but also in several of its sponsorships (e.g., Cavalcade of Lights, Sportsnet’s Monday Night Hockey).

“In parallel with, and for the first time outside Québec, we launched in September a campaign to position Desjardins in Ontario as a credible and experienced player for businesses of all sizes, offering them a complete range of financial products and services,” says Sapin. The campaign – “We speak the same language. Business.” – used mass media and contextual placements to reach a large potential of entrepreneurs.

As a long-time marketer working on brands of such high esteem, we asked Sapin a bit about her marketing philosophy. “I try to embrace change rather than fight it. I have constantly in the back of my mind the importance of being on the move, of staying curious.”

She also places great stock in remaining humble.

“I learned in the energy sector that what was true yesterday will not necessarily be true tomorrow. As a marketer, that means I have to make sure we stay relevant in terms of expertise, and we have to make sure that we are putting in place the right conditions for the team to respond to change, as rapidly as possible,” she says.

That means that, in order to build its reputation as a caring brand, she’ll need to bring her team up to speed on personalization. “That’s the next frontier.

It’s going to be the ultimate test of how to remain customer focused and relevant.”

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INDIE

Canada’s indies consistently find innovative ways to tackle challenges and come up with less obvious solutions.

How they do that is as individual as the agency themselves – but if you want to know what the industry in Canada will look like in future, it’s being created by indies right now.

Read on to get a sneak peek.

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Fighting ‘sameness’ since 2008 Zulu Alpha Kilo’s creative approach reduces the boring waste

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ABOVE: To THE AGENCY WORLD, like the highlight the supermarket shelf, is full of look-a-likes. unique nature of Zulu Alpha Kilo (Z.A.K.) was founded D2L’s personalized on the belief in contrary thinking and online learning seeing the world differently. platform, Z.A.K. “There’s no greater risk than reimagined putting work into the world that’s the standard more of the same,” says founder & school desk. creative chairman Zak Mroueh, who was recently honoured with the lifetime achievement award at the CMAs. Mroueh credits this recognition and his shop’s consistent creative and business success to an uncompromising mission to fight “sameness”.

Christine McNab, who was recently promoted to COO, adds, “Every brand has something special. Every brief has something special. It’s our job to find that magic even when it’s hiding and push against the category convention.”

This may explain why a lot of the 15-year-old independent’s creative output doesn’t often look anything like an ad at all.

In 2023, this included reimagining the standardized student desk for educational software company D2L. Transforming New York City’s fire hydrants into summer cooling stations.

Designing a basketball jersey with a price tag of $200 million to help bring back an NBA franchise to Vancouver. Launching an anti-gun violence campaign which included filing a firstof-its-kind human rights lawsuit against the U.S. government.

It also included three Effie wins for “Fixed-Rate Pizza”, a

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game-changer for Pizza Pizza, who were also honoured as a strategy Brand of the Year. Hot on the heels of the biggest interest rate hike in decades, consumers across Canada could “Lock-in their pizza rate” like they would a mortgage.

With over 1.1 million Fixed-Rate Pizzas sold to date and $19 million in additional revenue, Pizza Pizza extended the program in 2023.

“Boring is expensive. We never want to see a marketing budget wasted on work that isn’t truly distinct. Real people need to recognize and remember it,” says president and CEO Mike Sutton. “Fixed-Rate pizza is a great example of a client with the bravery to break away from the sameness of their category.”

Even when Z.A.K.’s solution was just an ad, it was creating “Somewhere, Anywhere,” a musical spectacle that became the most watched Superbowl spot of the year on YouTube with over 118 million views and the second most watched of all time.

“We’re proudly a creative company,” says Mroueh, “But we wield our creativity as a tool that has the power to transform business and organizations. There’s always a purpose behind it.”

Identifying that purpose, and getting clients to take that leap of faith, is rooted in honest partnerships with mutual trust. “It’s all about being co-conspirators together, strategic together and taking a massive creative leap together,” adds Sutton.

This vision is brought to life by a growing team that includes recent hires like Jenny Glover, CCO in Toronto, Emily Garvey, head of strategy, in New York, and Erica Shalinsky, executive strategy director, in Vancouver.

“We’ve all been part of agencies that said yes to everything,” Mroueh reiterates. “All the business ideas and creative successes that have fueled our growth over the years were often a result of keeping the status un-quo.”

He likens it to the classic Seinfeld episode in which George Costanza realizes he must start doing the opposite of everything he did in the past to find success in life.

McNab notes, “We’ve always believed in going against the grain in our creative work and how we run our business because you can’t expect your clients to do it if you don’t.”

It’s all made Zulu Alpha Kilo an agency in big demand.

“We’ve been told by clients that our process is like therapy,” Sutton says, unabashedly. “Sometimes our client partners just need a gentle push to see what’s possible when you embrace creativity, contrary thinking and break away from the same old formulas.”

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LEFT: 2 The Vancouver office worked with the Vancity Original apparel brand to create “VanBack,” a campaign to bring the NBA back to the city. BELOW: 3 When Sephora wanted to launch their Colour IQ Shade Matching Technology, Z.A.K. created a 360 campaign and immersive installation “Sephora Illumination” that celebrated the diversity of beauty in Canada. 4 Teaming up with Pizza Pizza, the agency launched the highly effective “Fixed-Rate Pizza” campaign that helped people lock in the price of pizza, as Canada’s inflation hikes skyrocketed.

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ABOVE: 1 Z.A.K. partnered with Street Lab in New York to create “Splash Spots,” that replace fire hydrant caps across the 5 Burroughs, transforming gushing water into a playful spray that releases 50% less water. 7 The indie shop tapped celebrity cake designer April Julian for “Cake Fake,” where she created hyperrealistic cakes to show that the possibilities are endless with KitchenAid Canada. 6 The debut work for Booking.com was “Somewhere, Anywhere,” a Super Bowl musical spectacle starring Melissa McCarthy. It racked up 118 million views, making it the most-watched Super Bowl commercial of 2023 and the second most-watched of all time on YouTube. 5 The New York and Vancouver office joined forces to help Manny and Patricia Oliver, whose son was killed in the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, file a first-of-its-kind human rights lawsuit against the U.S. government for failing to protect its citizens right to live with, “The Lawsuit for Survival.”

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CONTACT:

Christine McNab Chief operating officer christine.mcnab@zulualphakilo.com

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Maximizing creative velocity M&H has evolved to become the ideal partner

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M&H HAD HUMBLE BEGINNINGS AS A Montreal-based typesetter, a behind-thescenes wizard offering project management, design and creative, digital graphic production and all the other studio services that agencies often outsourced.

But, as the company celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, it’s evolved into something greater than the sum of its parts.

Operating as a clutch partner in a cluttered mediascape, M&H fills the void where traditional agencies stop and vendors start.

“We’re sort of a non-agency,” jokes M&H president Christian Quenneville.

The turning point for M&H began in 2005 when the marketing landscape started to shift.

The proliferation of media channels made it challenging for advertisers and agencies to create and manage the vast amounts of content required to feed the growing beasts.

M&H saw the opportunity and evolved to

1 ABOVE: M&H’s work for Armani’s Acqua di Giò fragence featured bold photography and the new faces of Generation Armani to an impactful OOH execution at Dundas Square in Toronto.

RIGHT: 1 A whole new brand identity was developed inhouse by M&H for non-profit Mère avec Pouvoir to help their efforts to raise money and support low-income single mothers. 2 In collaboration with Sid Lee, M&H produced OOH, social and print assets to communicate how Rogers connects Canadians and is “With You All the Way”. 3 & 4 M&H collaborated with Sid Lee to roll out the Circular Design for Fashion book on behalf of The Ellen Macarthur Foundation featuring vibrant colours and an embossed cover to align with the goal of redefining the future of fashion.

CONTACT:

Dave Nourse Vice-president growth dnourse@mh.ca

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become a bespoke creative entity positioned to satisfy that need.

Now, the majority of the firm’s clients are direct advertisers – either as an alternative to an in-house studio or complementary to it – a nice complement to the work they still do for their partner agencies.

Quenneville says his team takes pride in being craftspeople: they don’t create initial brand concepts or strategic plans, but instead excel at distilling and expressing those brands across digital, video, print and out-of-home.

“Where we shine is efficiency, speed of content and creative control as you’re deploying your brand on multiple platforms,” he notes. “And that resonates with a lot of large advertisers.”

It must. The last two years have seen M&H double its business and grow to 165 employees. Quenneville describes M&H as operating in the velocity, quality and volume-centric game, focused on driving efficiency within ever-expanding media channels. For this “non-agency,” that means removing as many sources of friction from the process as possible and leveraging marketing technologies to make things run smoothly.

For example, consider that M&H produced over 100,000 different pieces of content and assets for client L’Oreal last year alone. “At that scale,” Quenneville says, “technology is a friend both to the client and to us, allowing us to deliver quality at the velocity that’s expected in 2023.

“At this point, most advertisers we speak to and most agency partners have invested in some form of marketing tech stack, but have yet to fully leverage it within our sphere of deliverables.

There are huge gains to be made there.”

M&H can leverage an extensive set of creative and

organizational tools (like Workfront or the Adobe Creative Suite), as well as automation tools (like Dynamic Creative Optimisation [DCO] and Digital Creative Automation [DCA]), to get a volume of targeted work out the door within 12-to-24 hours.

That’s probably why clients like L’Oreal, BRP (Bombardier Recreational Products) and Rogers have chosen to work with M&H. Despite operating in distinct categories, all three work in very competitive retail environments in which they must react to competitive and market offers on a regional basis.

“With all the channels that we have to work with and leverage these days, it’s about message adaptation and localization,” he says. “You’re regionalizing everything. You’re not only adapting for language, you’re adapting for locale, competitive set and sales results in any given market. If you think about it as a matrix, it has gotten to be significantly more complex. We find that, with the use of technology, great creative going straight to market can be complex, but not complicated.”

In short, this means M&H is happy to leave the strategy to others and find new and better ways to get creative.

“We’re experts in managing the creative production process,” says Quenneville. “We’re really good at harnessing marketing technology. But ultimately, it’s about delivering quality creative scale, and that’s what we do. It’s that simple. But, it’s different from what our agency partners do.

“I don’t think the creative production process is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about a creative agency,” he adds. “But it is for us. We’re experts at managing the process and harnessing marketing technology, all in the service of driving quality creative at scale.”

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LEFT: Show and Tell developed a brand that communicates the resilience of Winnipeg with a gritty and down to earth feel.

Unleashing the power of fusion

Show and Tell is committed to creativity, authenticity and brand stewardship

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YOU’VE PROBABLY HEARD OF MCKIM COMMUNICATIONS. It has a storied history as Canada’s first advertising agency, getting its start in Montreal in 1889 and expanding to Winnipeg in 1911. It operated there for more than 100 years until 2021 when it merged with Sherpa Marketing and began operating under the banner of McKim.Sherpa.

It was an opportunity not to be wasted, says co-CEO and former head of Sherpa, Marty Fisher.

“We didn’t want to just slap a new name on the door and call it a day,” says Fisher. “We wanted a name that really represented who we are and what we do.”

Thus, Show and Tell was born. “It comes out of this notion that we all learn to share our ideas when we’re little kids,” explains ex-McKim topper Peter George. “Before you talk, you’re drawing pictures, and then you tell stories about the pictures. Sharing ideas is really what advertising is all about.”

The merger formally bonds the strategic branding and creative strengths of McKim and the digital prowess of Sherpa. The end result is what Fisher describes as an “integrated agency that does full-stack marketing.”

It’s a small but mighty powerhouse that offers services for every level of the funnel. Its team of 55 work out of offices in Winnipeg and Kitchener, and remotely throughout Canada (and also in Buenos Aires). Critically, says George, there’s no

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second string. “All our clients get a senior team,” he asserts.

“Everybody gets the A team.”

Their approach has attracted agricultural clients like Syngenta and NexusBioAg and industrial leaders such as Adama, Titan USA and Omya. Recent wins include the Workers Compensation Board of Manitoba, the Saskatchewan Workers’ Compensation Board (including WorkSafe Saskatchewan) as well as the University of Winnipeg and Ontario’s Lakehead University.

“We work with companies that do not have a list of agencies on their roster,” explains George. “We’re often their only full-service agency, so we do everything from brand building to awareness campaigns and conversion marketing.”

“Show and Tell’s commitment goes beyond the short term to embrace long-term brand stewardship,” says George. “It’s not unusual for the agency to lead a client through multiple brand evolutions, and we’ve often found ourselves holding the institutional knowledge when a client’s staff turns over.”

Consider recent work for Economic Development Winnipeg. It partnered with Travel Manitoba and Show and Tell to craft a distinctive brand voice for Winnipeg – one aimed at attracting investors, skilled workers, visitors and events. Show and Tell conducted extensive research, including engaging with more than 700 stakeholders, to determine the right tone.

The resulting brand aimed to authentically capture Winnipeg’s essence, led by the tagline “Made from what’s real.”

In beverage, Show and Tell’s recent Lake of the Wood Brewery campaigns aimed to boost sales of Lago and Sneaky Peach 12 packs in Manitoba and Ontario. The brand personality focused on history, relaxation and humour, using Meta to target adults 19 to 55 outdoor/sports and urban/beer audiences.

The campaign outperformed previous brand efforts and led to both products selling out.

The agency also points to its work with The University of Manitoba, which asked Show and Tell to update its visual identity. The agency’s discovery process uncovered that the UM’s existing logo conflicted with the university’s commitment to Indigenous success and reconciliation. The new crestshaped logo features a dynamic bison on an open path, symbolizing resilience and progress. The blue tones represent the sky and aurora borealis, while a flame signifies the commitment to reconciliation.

Show and Tell is off to an ambitious start – not that you would expect anything else from this storied Prairies agency.

“People in Winnipeg are resilient,” sums Fisher. “They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty. Nobody hands you anything in a place like Winnipeg. You have to build it yourself.

Maybe that’s why we punch above our weight.”

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LEFT: 1 Manitoba Opera has relied on Show & Tell for over 20 years to create impactful and award winning campaigns across OOH and digital.

2 During its 10 year engagement Show & Tell has helped CBCRA reach its highest recycling recovery rate on record in Manitoba: 72% for beverage containers, including 80% for plastic containers while Recycle Everywhere also achieved its highest level of brand awareness at 90%.

3 A national multimedia campaign for a new feed product from Syngenta spoke to farmers and retailers alike through sharp, evocative imagery of cattle. 4 Lake of Woods Brewing turned to Show & Tell for its Sneaky Peach beverage campaign to increase awareness and drive sales throughout Manitoba and Ontario.

5 The University of Manitoba engaged Show & Tell to update its brand positioning. Through consultation with over 7,000 stakeholder, students and alumni, the agency created a dynamic visual identity focusing on the institution’s commitment to Indigenous achievement and advancement.

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CONTACT:

Marty Fisher Co-CEO, principal marty@theshowandtellagency.com

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The human touch

Humanity’s wellbeing-focused approach is winning over brands and their communities

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THE WORLD INCREASINGLY SPINS on an axis of data and information, propelled by infinite amounts of minutiae filling fields of server farms. But somewhere between those 1s and the 0s are people who make rational and irrational decisions every minute of the day. It’s Humanity’s goal to find those spaces and uncover the humans behind the numbers.

The Toronto-based brand transformation agency was founded in 2020 with the goal of creating a truly unique offering in the ad space. Its president and CCO, Carolyn Shaw, is an experienced agency creative director and its CSO and head of client success, Ryan Hughes, has over 20 years of experience applying behavioural sciences to brand strategy and advertising.

They built Humanity with the goal of focusing on the core human pursuit of wellbeing, using a diverse

LEFT: Most dairy farms in Manitoba are small, family run farms.

‘All from a good place’ as a new brand platform incapsulates everything the dairy farmers do and leans in to the Manitoba pride felt throughout the province.

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RIGHT: 1 For their first Canadian created campaign, Botox Cosmetic leaned into the insight that while aging is out of our control, we can control how we age and live more confidently when we are in control.

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and scientific approach. At the agency’s core is the Wellbeing Framework, a trademarked approach developed by Shaw and Hughes that is rooted in applied behavioural science with the goal of unlocking how someone thinks, not what they think.

“We are driven by the idea that brands can and should play an important role in supporting human wellbeing,” Shaw explains.

Ensuring the work that ensues is representative of all humans is the agency’s Unity unit, a team of advisors that brings diverse voices and perspectives to all of the agency’s work.

Wellbeing is a broad term, and the agency gave it a workout with its client Botox Cosmetic. The brand is a household name that needs no explanation, but it was also primarily a B2B brand when it came to sales and marketing.

The company presented Humanity with a compelling challenge: to build a new, consumer-facing presence for Canadian consumers using local insights and cultural nuance.

Through behavioural, quantitative and qualitative market research, Humanity uncovered a common benefit powerful enough to unite all consumers: while aging is entirely out of our control, how we age is not.

The insight birthed a new brand platform called “Free to be me,” based on the idea being that when you are your most confident self, you free yourself to be who you really are.

Humanity was able to explore an entirely different side of wellbeing with the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba (DFM). The organisation had been in the early phases of exploring a new logo, believing its brand image no longer served its purpose, when it discovered Humanity and its unique methodology.

The agency put the Wellbeing Framework to work, creating a new brand strategy using a process that involved purpose

modelling, stakeholder and board alignment, semiotic and focus group testing, and the development of a new brand positioning statement. Based on the reality that farms are run by humans and their families, and that legacies and livelihoods are at stake, the positioning statement was born: “Family is at the heart of Manitoba dairy farms.” Every aspect of the brand reflects it: the design speaks to the brand’s 50-year heritage; the forward-facing cow represents animal care and the future. The curved ‘smile’ taps into the notion of ‘friendly Manitoba’ and pride of place.

The brand platform ‘All from a good place’, speaks to everything dairy farmers do.

It's a fantastic example of what Shaw and Hughes say is their human-centric approach to brand building and transformation.

They are especially excited to apply the methodology to a new client that is apt for the agency’s own brand: the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

It’s the “perfect fit for Humanity,” says Shaw and says the team is thrilled to be diving deep into and using behavioural science based research methods to really understand what human rights mean to Canadians. Humanity did similar work in this space when they were awarded a national anti-racism campaign with the Canadian government.

And what is more human than that?

CONTACT:

Carolyn Shaw President, CCO carolyn.shaw@humanityagency.com

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LEFT: 2 The strategic Wellbeing Framework led to a better understanding of the role milk plays in consumer’s lives. With this insight, a new brand platform was created, along with a completely new look to differentiate Fairlife within the Canadian ultra filtered milk category.

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LEFT: 3 For the new Spatula Foods brand identity, the concept was to focus attention on the U in the logo.

The U represents a bowl, a pot, a pan or a plate as a key ingredient of the brand’s visual identity, while also focusing on the real hero creating chef perfected meals – you.

4 The humans of Humanity.

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Custom fit for purpose

Round puts a premium on flexibility and efficiency to deliver remarkable results

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ABOVE: Pop star IN THE EVER-EVOLVING marketing Ciara’s new skincare world, Toronto-based Round is line, OAM (On A championing a model that thrives Mission). Round on agile independence. created the brand Co-founders Mike Davidson and from nothing in 3 Paul Riss are agency veterans that short months. have built a dynamic agency, leading a team of over 150 industry experts that join projects exactly when their expertise is required. It’s a lean model thats been especially useful during uncertain economic times.

“We talk to a client, understand their business, and put together a proposal to tackle the problem,” explains Davidson.

Round draws from the talent pool to assemble the perfect team. “Our model is all about cutting the fat and working with senior decision-makers,” he says.

The main benefit of being able to provide on-demand top-tier talent to clients of all sizes and budgets, says Davidson, is that “we can get there faster and cheaper using senior talent. There’s no bait and switch. We don’t offload work to junior people, which is more frustrating and, more expensive.”

Organizations that benefit most from Round’s agile, low overhead model are early-stage companies, mid-sized brands, not-for-profits, and large organizations requiring senior talent on priority projects. To date, they’ve worked with the likes of Mackenzie Investments, Subaru, Boston Beer Company, DoorDash, Disney, Harlequin, Go Auto, BGC, RBC, and more. They were recently selected as a preferred creative agency for Purolator and have also

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partnered up with business accelerators MaRS and The Forge at McMaster University.

Case in point: Round recently created pop-star Ciara’s new skin care brand OAM, developing the brand strategy, name, logo, packaging and visual identity in just 3 months when other agencies said it couldn’t be done.

“We are not beholden to current staff bandwidth.

Instead, we assembled a senior-talent swat team of 2 strategists, 6 writers and 6 designers across Canada and the US with the goal of getting as many options in the shortened timeline as we could,” says Davidson. The product launched on time, on budget, and managed to pick up several awards in the process.

Another noteworthy client is BGC (formerly Boys & Girls Clubs of Canada), a service that supports over 200,000 kids across the country through more than 700 locations. Round played a pivotal role in its rebranding and has developed several campaigns to promote it, including the most recent, “Unshareable Stories,” which highlights the problems affecting kids without explicitly showing them.

“We took the approach of great horror movies,” explains Riss. “You saw some of the story, but the camera became obscured during the climax. We really wanted to allow the viewer to create the ‘monster’ in their own head, because they will always push it as far as they’re comfortable with.”

And push it they did. Website traffic reached more than six times the monthly average, page views were up four times. An incredible 80% of visitors were new.

L’OCA is a new specialty food market that’s launching along with two restaurants managed by Top Chef Canada winner Paul Moran. Round was brought in for branding, website design and development work. “They have a robust internal creative department, but we plug right into it,” explains Riss. “We’re working together to create a holistic brand, and sometimes there’s bits they lead and sometimes there’s bits we lead. L’OCA plans to expand nationally in the future.”

“We have an extensive network,“ says Davidson, “that allows us to deliver everything from branding, creative, production, website builds, PR, media and more; everything a client might need,” says Davidson.

And they don’t see any reason to change. “We like being able to pick the best team for each project – it’s faster, less expensive and delivers better work.”

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LEFT: 1 Revelios is a brand that is out to show that employee mental health has a direct relationship to business results.

Round handled brand strategy, naming, logo, and visual identity centered around a visualization of positive brain activity.

2 The L’OCA website is being built in phases with the goal of a complete online shopping experience managing many thousands of SKUs. 3 5 Paddles Brewing was looking to create clean labels that reflected their approach to brewing, ‘Simple beer tastes better.’

4 BGC Canada’s TV campaign, Unshareable Stories, led viewers down a path but obscured the climax, allowing them to ‘imagine’ what happened. This technique let people push how bad the situation was to the limits of their own imagination. 5 BGC’s Out-of-Home campaign showed portraits of the children they serve but covered their mouths because the stories are too much for an ad campaign. 6 The American Birding Association needed a brand refresh including a new brand strategy, logo, visual identity, and magazine redesign.

Round created a logo based on the dual binocular lenses.

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CONTACT:

Mike Davidson Partner & managing director mike@weareround.com

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Building long-term relationships

LG2 is designed to ensure longevity for its employees, partners and clients

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ABOVE: LG2 refreshed the Zellers brand and digital experience for the Canadian legacy’s relaunch.

THERE AREN’T MANY CERTAINTIES IN life, but one is that LG2 will continue to be independent 50 years from now, predicts Jeremy Gayton, partner and president of the Toronto office.

“Our founders created a model designed to exist in perpetuity,” he says. “We’re not getting camera-ready for sale. Controlling our own destiny is a priority for us.”

One of the longevity drivers for the more than 400-employee agency is a partnership model that is a meritocracy, says Claude Auchu, partner and CEO. “It’s accessible to anyone who has a positive impact on the business, not just the person that can afford to buy shares,” he says.

LG2 has almost 40 partners, including recent additions Shelly-Ann Scott, VP of client services, and Josh Stein, chief creative officer, in Toronto. “We don’t have silent partners,” says Gayton. “Everybody’s involved with

1 RIGHT: 1 LG2’s design and digital work on the launch of the new Beneva national brand included a new website and mobile app to make insurance friendly and easy to understand. 2 LG2 took a museum-like approach for a booth for American Apparel’s classic black 2001 tee at its AArt Gallery, created for the apparel industry trade show Impressions Expo. 3 Bell Let’s Talk, created by LG2, has helped the movement grow for the past 13 years supporting almost 4.4 million Canadians. 4 For Community Music Schools of Toronto’s Parkscapes Volume 3, an album intended for sampling and remixing, LG2 created a vibrant design to generate excitement around the launch. 5 Designed by LG2, The Canadian Space Agency’s new logo communicates daring invention and sights set on the future. 6 LG2 created the whimsical “Catelli Pastaland,” a farm made up of fields of spaghetti, penne-shaped crops, and pasta-laden trees. 7 LG2 portrayed Mondoux’s flagship Sweet Sixteen candy line in an exquisite way as part of a social campaign that garnered 68 million impressions.

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CONTACT:

Jeremy Gayton Partner, president, Toronto jeremy.gayton@lg2.com

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the business. Clients work with the owners of the company, and it shows in the quality of work and the strength of the relationships.”

LG2 has over 200 clients, including Chicken Farmers of Canada, which recently named LG2 as its AOR to lead a creative refresh.

Recent client wins also include Ontario Northland, Nespresso, Sports Experts, People Corporation, Ocean Spray and the Ontario Cannabis Store.

Like many agencies, LG2 started in advertising and evolved its capabilities as marketing needs changed over the years. Today the indie’s areas of expertise take the full brand experience in mind by offering digital product development, ecommerce, employer brand, ESG consulting and architecture services as part of its advertising and design practice.

To drive more impact for clients LG2 started a joint venture with Tact: Alinea, a PR and public affairs agency. “Not only is Alinea a means to serve existing clients better, but it’s proving to be a new business pipeline,” particularly for B2B industries that wouldn’t previously have come to LG2, Auchu says.

The ability to tackle business problems from an array of angles is reflected in the eclectic range of work LG2 produced this year. For example, long-time client The Bay turned to LG2 for the relaunch of the Zellers discount brand as an ecommerce store. The agency helped the retailer refresh their brand and implement efficiencies such as combining shopping carts, user accounts and search functionality to ensure Zellers’ more than 10,000 SKUs would be easy to find on site.

LG2’s architectural group created a museum-like experience for American Apparel’s installation at Impressions Expo, a large apparel trade show. Visitors followed a guided path inside a suspended

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16-foot-high black box to discover seven installations featuring the brand’s classic black 2001 tee. The display focused on one iconic product was so successful that orders soared, prompting the company to reshape its global production plan and allocate more resources to the clothing line.

For Community Music Schools of Toronto, LG2 created album artwork for Parkscapes Vol. 3, an album of music samples played by the students to fundraise for the non-profit organization. The royalties and sales from Parkscapes have become an enduring source of funding for youth who face financial barriers to music education. It’s a good example of the agency’s quest to “create things that are sustaining and enduring,” Gayton notes.

LG2 was also brought in to develop the new insurance brand Beneva, an entity created out of the merger between Quebec insurers SSQ and La Capitale. With a goal to boost the company’s presence in English Canada, the campaign was a huge success, with 66% brand recall following the launch. After only two months in-market, 61% of respondents saw Beneva as a major insurance player.

LG2 is one of Canada’s most-awarded agencies. In 2023, they were seventh place on strategy’s Creative Report Card, received ADCC’s Scarlet Letter for Design Agency of the Year, and ranked among the top ten best digital agencies by Awwwards amongst other honours.

In addition, Gayton notes, the agency has also been recognized in successive years as one of Canada’s best managed companies, an achievement of which he is particularly proud. “Not only are we able to produce world-class creative but we’re recognized for the fact that we know how to run a company as well,” he says.

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Create things that move people

Central Station’s mantra pays off for brands

C ABOVE: Central Station turned a footwear store into an award-winning sneaker heaven in honour of International Air Max Day. With custom in-store displays featuring three of Nike’s designers, kinetic elements and multiple layers to create 3D experiences.

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CENTRAL STATION TELLS CLIENTS THAT it likes to travel light, enjoy the ride and create things that move people.

Specializing in branding, innovations, physical experiences, and digital marketing, the 50-employee Toronto agency is rooted in the mantra that “we’ll get you to great work and you’ll enjoy the journey,” says John Boniface, executive partner and a founder of the agency.

This mantra is supported by the agency’s Arrive Together philosophy. Taking the approach of working with not for clients, the team avoids big reveals and shares work early and often.

Traveling light is a testament to its moderate size which “allows us to be extremely smart, nimble, and agile,” says Ryan Walker, president and partner. “We think clients these days are really looking for hands-on, senior people with no unnecessary layers and that’s what we give them.”

Boniface says Central Station has a history of building, designing and managing websites and that connected services such as SEO, SEM, Paid Media and Social Media now represent about 20% of its business. Digital will always be part of Central Station’s DNA – the agency has several developers, coders and digital project managers on staff.

Designing retail windows, in-store merchanding and other physical installations for brands are strong suits for

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LEFT: 1 The new logo and packaging developed

by Central Station for cold-brew coffee company Two Bears is fun, furry, and a little bit ferocious.

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TOP LEFT: 2 An online and print campaign positioned KPMG as a consultancy with a unique POV, starring real employees with extraordinary hobbies. With creative juxtaposing work with play, the campaign involved crosscountry photoshoots and hoisting the occasional kayak.

3 BOTTOM LEFT: 3 Launching The Ordinary in Sephora at The Dubai Mall, the largest window in one of the largest malls in the world (no pressure). Central created a lab-inspired window display and in-store gondola in honour of Deciem’s ethos of ‘Science-backed skincare.’

Central Station. It offers capabilities such as 3D rendering, which it has found is an important service that can bring ideas to life for clients. “It’s an in-house skill that a lot of our competitors do not have,” Boniface says. It also takes care of building, installing and dismantling its installations.

One of those installations was for Toronto-based skincare brand Deciem, which asked Central Station to help with the launch of its The Ordinary brand in Dubai. The activation in the Sephora store window in Dubai Mall, “crushed the results that they were hoping to achieve, not just on brand awareness but also for sales,” Walker says.

Not only that, but the agency was able to turn its “travel light” philosophy into reality, says Rocco Pelle, associate creative director.

“None of our creative team members stepped foot in Dubai. We designed, built and had the window installed remotely.” Deciem, now an Estée Lauder subsidiary, has recruited Central Station to repeat the Dubai experience in Japan.

Another client, luxury brand Dior approached Central Station during the pandemic when the borders were closed, and displays couldn’t be shipped into Canada, Walker says.

Since then, the brand has called upon the agency to fabricate several retail windows across the GTA, he says. Dior places a huge focus on sustainability and Central Station can provide work that is environmentally friendly but looks ultra luxurious, adds associate creative director Alex Davies.

Other recent client gains include the Montreal-based global pharmaceutical compounding firm Medisca, global toy maker Spin Master and project work for the University of Toronto.

Walker says much of the agency’s business stems from organic growth from existing clients and referrals from existing and former clients. It takes pride in having major clients that have been with

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the agency for more than 20 years, like Nike and The Bay. For Nike, Central Station does almost all of the company’s in-store marketing in Canada, including window and store displays, activations and new store openings.

Of course, Central Station’s standout work isn’t limited to physical experiences. For KPMG, Central Station created the Storytelling Campaign, which did double duty as a brand building and recruitment effort for the consulting giant, says Davies.

Employees with cool hobbies and interesting outside-of-work passions – including professional white water kayakers and a former band frontwoman - were interviewed on camera and became stars of the campaign created by KPMG’s Canadian AOR. Aimed at showing the company’s breadth, the campaign has received “a lot of traction internally and has really helped with recruitment,” Boniface says.

Central Station also recently completed a full rebrand of longtime client Humber River Hospital that required “intense” presentations to hundreds of hospital employees before getting the go-ahead, Davies says. The campaign was rooted in a new brand proposition and included a new logo design, and the tagline, “Lighting New Ways in Healthcare,” which was created to speak to the institution’s innovative spirit and leadership in healthcare.

Boniface says the work Central Station does is really indicative of its name which alludes to a busy train station and indicates the “with us you can travel to different places from a marketing standpoint.”

CONTACT:

Ryan Walker President, partner ryan@centralstationto.com

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LEFT: 4 To support Dior’s commitment to sustainability, Central sources eco-friendly materials and reduces their carbon footprint, proving that low environmental impact can still be high fashion.

LEFT: 5 The Central Station team trying to nail the ‘casually leaning against a wall because we work in an ad agency’ pose.

L-R: Rocco Pelle (associate creative director), John Boniface (executive partner), Alex Davies (associate creative director), Ryan Walker (president, partner).

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Helping brands pursue relevance

help brands pursue relevance. With the pace of change accelerating, Brandish leans on frequent research to ensure its strategies are relevant.

Brandish’s work comes from an understanding of what its clients’ audiences find meaningful, garnered through qualitative insight, Waltham says. “We advocate for an agile approach to research” to connect brands to the people they need to reach. Relevance is fleeting, “people are in motion, and as their expectations change, so should brands.”

This intensive approach to research is also apparent in their work with LEFT: Working Manitoba’s largest automotive dealership with Birchwood Birchwood Auto Group and educational Auto Group to institution Robertson College. dispel the worries For automotive, their strategy focused of buying used on transparency. “We found that there cars - Brandish is a lot of apprehension that goes created “No into buying a used vehicle. Everyone Second Guessing” highlighting can envision a sketchy car salesman, the transparent and with our “No Second Guessing” experience the campaign, we made sure to address that dealership group concern head-on – deploying humour to provides clients. communicate that with Birchwood, you don’t have to worry,” says Waltham.

“On the flipside with Robertson, we found the barrier to recruiting was WHEN BRANDS WANT TO MAKE AN IMPACT, Winnipegpeople thought they would have to quit their jobs. With the “Don’t Quit Your Day Job, Yet” campaign, we employed based Brandish doesn’t hesitate to take on the challenge. comedic scenarios to deliver the message that students And they did just that when they successfully launched the could keep working while taking advantage of Robertson’s Winnipeg Sea Bears into the 2023 Canadian Elite Basketball League. In a city where hockey reigns supreme, Brandish flexible programming.” was challenged to uncover what local basketball fans were Established in 2016, Brandish has grown steadily while looking for and then use these insights to encourage them maintaining its ethos as a small agency. "We're not just to show up in full force for the Sea Bears first home game. building a business; we're fostering relationships and trust," says Waltham. This philosophy is evident in Brandish's focus And by taking a shot with Brandish, the Sea Bears on people, offering a 4-day workweek to its employees flourished in their inaugural season – smashing attendance and using a unique value-based billing system for clients. records (65,609 people) and selling out their first game.

Eschewing the traditional hourly billing model, Brandish These results were driven by research which uncovered basketball's rising popularity among Canadian youth, focuses on delivering results and aligning their success growing fastest amongst women, the Filipino community with that of their clients. and new Canadians. These insights helped launch the The agency's recent merger with Red The Agency marks "Day One" campaign, an anthemic celebration of a significant step in Brandish's growth. Red has “a really Winnipeg's basketball community. The campaign great book and strong reputation” with clients including the provincial government and Edmonton Oilers. Red principals highlighted basketball's accessibility and community spirit, while inviting folks to join in on the team’s literal day one.

Lori Billey and Randy Cronin will continue at Brandish in business development and strategy roles, “this brings us The campaign blanketed Manitoba, and with a limited one step closer to that national footprint we’re looking to edition merchandise drop, the momentum helped secure the team as CEBL’s franchise of the year. build,” Waltham says.

Lee Waltham, Brandish’s managing partner & coBrandish's journey reflects a commitment to fresh perspectives and genuine connections, transcending founder, says, "This campaign showcased our sweet spot traditional agency boundaries. As Waltham says, "It's – bridging businesses and their customers in meaningful ways. It was more than promoting a sport; it was about not about being the biggest; it's about being the most impactful while staying true to our values. We're here to igniting a community's passion." create profound and impactful creative campaigns.”

And it’s a prime example of the agency’s mantra to

Brandish empowers connections through insights

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ABOVE: 1 & 2 Brandish faced the challenge of introducing the Sea Bears, a new team in the Canadian Elite Basketball League, to Winnipeg. The “Day One” campaign, incuding a merch drop and a digital campaign, invited the city’s basketball community to be part of the team from the beginning. RIGHT: 3 The “Don’t Quit Your Day Job, Yet,” campaign for Robertson College used humour to encourage workers not to quit their dull day jobs – not yet anyway – while upgrading their skills at the college.

CONTACT:

Lee Waltham Managing partner lee.waltham@brandishagency.com

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FROM NEW TECHNOLOGY ABOVE: To help Breast Cancer Canada stand to rapidly changing consumer out in a sea of pink, the behaviours and geopolitical agency created a sleek turmoil, the world has been modern brand identity. going through profound disruption as of late.

“We always say, ‘the world changed; a lot of agencies didn’t,’” says Scot Keith, CEO of Vancouver-based agency One Twenty Three West (123w).

“In this environment, our biggest job is to make people care.

You can’t just do the old-school thing, make a few traditional media buys and expect to be successful. You’ve got to do something smart and insightful.”

The 65-person shop with offices in Vancouver and Toronto tackles this challenge by specializing in strategy, design and digital advertising. The shop prides itself on keeping its overhead costs low (Keith often brags about how little the agency pays for office space) and its structure flat (the shop has a “one team, one dream” philosophy).

Whether it’s working with popular dating app Plenty of Fish, nonprofits like Breast Cancer Canada or household names like Loblaws, every project starts with an ideation session – a planning session with key stakeholders. “Firstly, we need to do our homework on their vision, objectives, target groups – really understanding their business, tonality and their best touchpoints,” Keith says. “We’re basically co-creating the perfect brief together.”

Often in these discovery sessions, it becomes clear that what the client thought it wanted, isn’t what it needed.

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Mo Bofill, partner and ECD of design points to 123w’s recent work with Seattle Southside, a tourism agency dedicated to drawing visitors to the towns just south of Washington’s capital. Rather than vying for urbanite travellers, who are the traditional audience for most travel campaigns, the focus shifted to showcasing the area as an affordable – yet exciting – destination for families. “For [some travellers] you might want to be downtown Seattle to go to all the restaurants. But for a lot of people, [the focus] is on family travel. They want ‘smaller’ things, like miniature golf, nice hotels with a pool and activities for the kids. That led to the strategy of ‘micro-adventures.’”

The campaign flipped the narrative on the ‘mundane‘ by using a resplendent design aesthetic. This focus on design is a key differentiator for the agency.

“Human beings are visual-first,” Bofill says. “Good brand design commands attention and can disrupt people’s day in a good way. A striking package on a shelf can mean the difference between a new buyer stopping to learn more or moving right along. And a beautiful brand can be a differentiator in a crowded field.”

Take the work 123w did with Breast Cancer Canada (formerly the Breast Cancer Society of Canada). Tasked with a complete modernization of the brand, the agency first looked at its design identity.

The charity competes against a number of similar organizations, all of which are awash in a sea of pink. It also faced messaging fatigue, thanks to the pandemic as well as a lack of perceived progress in cancer care research.

The new brand identity puts breast cancer survivors and researchers at the heart of the creative, in beautifully shot, sophisticated imagery that pays tribute to the iconic pink ribbon. The “Know More Breast Cancer” campaign played on the homophone of “no/know” and focused on the role of the non-profit in the fight against the disease and recent advancements in cancer research, resulting in a marked increase in engagement with the brand.

Bofill pegs much of the agency’s success to its team, which has expanded by more than 30% since 2021.

Recent hires include Samantha Faloon and Amber Malik (account directors), Sasha Abrams (digital director), Matthew Johnson (designer), Andronicus Wu (AD), Jon Dawe (senior copywriter), Jillian Arsenault (producer) and Neal Owusu (head of production). “We keep our overhead low so we can save money and hire better, more experienced people who do better work for clients.”

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LEFT: 1 “Explore Seattle Southside” went big on the small moments of joy to be found in suburban neighourboods, targeting families looking for micro adventures. 2 A limited-edition beer pack for Vancouver Island Brewing leaned into the iconic Orca whale, with specialty beers named after famous sea mammals and packaging making use of the famous fin.

3 The Real Canadian Superstore got personal and put customers’ purchases on billboards, showcasing the culinary array of both Canadians and its locations.

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CONTACT:

Scot Keith Founder, CEO, president scot@123w.ca

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Roadmaps for brand growth

Blackjet is hyper-focused on the destination to help guide its clients

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ROB GALLETTA KEEPS HIS EYE ON the destination. And it’s that focus that helped him realize that marketers have lost the plot.

“CMO tenure is getting shorter and shorter, and when compared to finance or R&D departments marketing as a practice is becoming a lower priority in corporate cultures,” says Galletta, the CEO of Blackjet Inc. What’s causing this decline? “The world has become infatuated with purpose,” Galletta says. “We’ve become so obsessed with purpose-led marketing, we’ve lost sight of the fact that there’s an overarching business goal – or what we call a destination, a place we want to get to – whether that’s market-share driven, revenue-driven or some other basic goal of a business that allows it to function, generate revenue, and do other things that are purpose-led. “

1 ABOVE: Blackjet used memorable and colourful design to communicate how insurance provider Onlia is super simple to use through an integrated brand campaign. RIGHT: 1 Canadian coffee roaster Reunion got a sleek modern rebrand designed to connect with discerning caffeine lovers. 2 There’s plenty to see in Japan, and a new campaign for Tourism Japan highlights how easy it is to get there. 3 Gay Lea is a household name, but a new campaign was designed to showcase the emotional moments its dairy products enables. 4 The consultancy went old school to launch the new artisanal Cicchetto liqueur line, taking inspiration from vintage liquor brands. 5 To connect window-maker Jeld-Wen with broader consumers, Blackjet enlisted a ferocious wintery Viking to showcase how the windows keep the cold invaders out.

CONTACT:

Robert Galletta Chief executive officer rgalletta@blackjet.ca

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Enter Blackjet. Headquartered in Toronto, with satellite offices in Chicago and London, UK, the 15-year-old agency describes itself as a “strategically led brand and business consultancy backed by a creative studio.”

Working with the most senior leaders possible is the key to a successful strategy, Galletta says. “The best types of engagements we have bring all the decision-makers to the table, so that we can make sure we’re on the same page before we go somewhere.”

Keeping the C-suite out of the loop on marketing and brand efforts, “is what leads to a disdain or negative attitude towards marketing. That’s when they start to treat it as an expense, rather than an investment,” he says.

The approach seems to work, and the agency counts Tourism Japan, dairy cooperative Gay Lea and real estate trust RioCan among its clientele. And its “destination” focused strategy has made it a particularly appealing agency for organizations looking at expansion.

He points to work with Onlia – a startup tech-based insurance company that was trying to make inroads in Canada.

Launched towards the end of the last decade, the insurer targeted younger millennials in Ontario through a brand platform built around safety. However the ‘safety’ platform didn’t quite resonate as stongly with conumers as anticipated and therefore some key metrics weren’t being met. Specifically daily policy sales.

“When we won the business, we took that metric as our North Star,” says Galletta. “What we quickly realized was that we needed a brand platform that resonated with their core target and that we needed to shift away from ‘safety’.” The result was a complete overhaul of the insurer’s branding, with the goal of increasing

sales, rather than just awareness building. The target demographic shifted to older millennials and Gen Xers, while the safety-themed brand messaging was shifted in favour of showcasing the ease of use in buying insurance and making claims online.

“Fast-forward a year later, and the campaign has led to triple digit growth,” Galletta says.

And, as it continues to help clients grow, Blackjet is also focused on its own expansion, with the goal of more than doubling in size by 2026 through both organic growth and acquisition. In January, Blackjet acquired Toronto-based shopper marketing firm Spider, and Galletta has a short list of other disciplines and potential lines of business that he’ll target to fuel Blackjet’s growth over the next few years.

In October, Adam Thur, former ECD at DDB Canada, joined the agency in the same role, responsible for managing the group’s creative teams. His appointment capped off rapid talent expansion over the past two years, which has included Sonja Davies as VP of content and digital; Ali Dalfen as VP and group account director; Jordan Minnaar as VP client services; and former FCB president and CEO Paul Mead, who is helping lead growth efforts.

“What we’re hearing from our clients is that they really don’t want to deal with generalists; it’s really hard to put a team in front of a client and tell them that they’re good at everything,” he says.

“The world doesn’t need another integrated agency, so we’ve decided to build specialist teams and allow our clients direct access to strategy, content creation, digital production, shopper and creative expertise. We [want to] help businesses get to their destination faster, with the least amount of turbulence.”

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Connecting the dots on a lasting legacy Cundari takes a unique approach to generating fresh ideas

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ABOVE: In the latest IT USUALLY ISN’T LONG installment of “Ahhhh Ffffffix before new clients at Cundari Auto” Cundari created notice a real difference in the digital videos without thinking and the work which showing any damaged cars gets shared in the boardroom. to allow the audience to Clients such as Siemens develop their own story in Mobility, Italpasta, Yellow Tail the theatre of the mind. and Fix Auto noticed a much greater range of work based on the agency’s Connect the Dots briefing methodology and the development of the brief through the agency’s Integrated Strategy Hub (ISH).

It’s an evolution of the briefing process that agency founder Aldo Cundari helped shape and mould into a system that produces noticeable results for clients.

Campaigns are built with insights from the ISH where team members working on social, brand, media, analytics, and even the executive team weigh in on every element of a business challenge. “If my strategist is the only person generating strategies,” Cundari says, “they’re all going to have a similar endpoint”. The Connect The Dots briefing system builds the work based on strategic insights and cues taken from everyone on the team, including newest additions social content strategist Gargi Ghugare and VP media Snehal Ramdin.

The creative team and designers don’t just follow a single stream of focus. Rather the brief presents 6 different ways in rooted in insights around the brand, target audience, competitive insights, business, and marketing opportunities. Creative teams flesh out those that feel the richest creatively, then share with the entire Cundari

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team and Connect the Dots between ideas, insights, and people. “We’ve presented [one client with] three concepts that came out of that methodology,” Cundari explains, “and the client said it felt as if three different agencies presented the work.”

Take Cundari’s Bai police lineup videos, a cheeky way to make an antioxidant drink memorable on social media. Or the agency’s ‘theatre of the mind’ video of a teen crashing his grandfather’s Jaguar for Fix Auto.

Then contrast those punchy, tongue-in-cheek spots with Cundari’s heartwarming reboot of Italpasta, the first new national TV commercial created by the pasta brand since the 80s. This approach doesn’t just boil down to locking a bunch of ad professionals in a room until they come up with the perfect concept for a client’s brief. It also means getting under the hood of a client’s operations.

“We do the work as an extension of the client’s marketing and brand teams,” says Adair Altimas-Keith, VP group account director at Cundari. “You can’t write the ‘Connect The Dots’ brief if you don’t understand the business holistically.”

Spending a lot of time with clients also includes using data to hone in on a target audience. For Italpasta, understanding the most current data about the pasta company’s target audience helped Cundari Group develop creative for its national campaign.

The research, Aldo Cundari says, “showed the agency just how central a role pasta plays in the memories of consumers.

It’s not just a meal,” he adds, “but it’s part of the connection point.” This became the way for the Cundari Group to pull on cross-cultural notions of tradition and family. “It was a great way to define who they are and what they sell,” Cundari says of Italpasta. “They do sell pasta, but they are interconnected with relationships as well.” These techniques, along with decades of experience and a plethora of talent, are getting results. Last summer, Cundari snagged a contract from Siemens Mobility away from its American ad agency.

The agency also landed a large production assignment with the LCBO – and Cundari Group is currently in the early stages of a relationship with Brazilian juice giant Natural One for its Canadian market debut.

“We’re excited about this opportunity,” says Sean Barlow, CCO at Cundari. “We’re continuing to build a talented in-house production team, so the clients feel they are maximizing their launch budget. And it’s great to see CPG companies’ belief in making an emotional connection with consumers as their way to enter the Canadian market.”

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LEFT: 1 & 2 Cundari created digital shorts using a cheeky reference that got Bai on consumers’ radar - the result was 53% awareness in just 6 months for a product new to the Canadian market. 3 & 4 For Italpasta’s first campaign since the 1980’s Cundari focused on consumers’ deep-seated emotional connection with pasta as a way to elevate the brand and build brand preference.

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CONTACT:

Aldo Cundari CEO aldo.cundari@cundari.com

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THE INDIE LIST

Expanding connections

Elemental has beefed up its in-house staff to better work with clients at every step

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TORONTO INDIE ELEMENTAL BUILT ITS REPUTATION as the human connection agency: a shop capable of bringing together companies and customers, brands and audiences. Today, as the ad world gets more and more chaotic, Elemental is bringing as many of its services and required skillsets in-house as possible.

“2023 was a year focused on investing in our approach as the Human Connections agency,” said Brent Wardrop, CCO and partner at Elemental. “We have expanded our team beyond creative and strategy, offering in-house media and social to allow us to work faster at creating more effective solutions.”

Unsurprisingly, Elemental has grown its headcount to do so. Over the last eight months, the agency added eight new staff to its current roster of 26, including an influencer and media team, as well as high-level

LEFT: Oceana worked with Elemental to turn the tide on how much plastic packaging ends up in our oceans.

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2 LEFT: 1 Elemental helped Golf Canada launch the brand new National Golf League to help connect golfers across the country.

RIGHT: 2 Elemental used Baffin workers and fans to shoot a campaign about the passion and excitement of the CFL.

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accounts staff. And all of them collaborate on campaigns. The agency’s process brings together marketing, creative, social, and other departments together so every aspect of a campaign, from initial insights to launch, flows together seamlessly.

Through its ‘Briefstorm’ process, Elemental staffers and a client sit together in the same room and hash out their hopes, dreams and ideas for a new project. Nothing is off-limits. “We believe that the best work comes from working collaboratively with our clients.

It’s about being in the room with them, sharing and challenging ideas to get to great work.” says Dustin Brown, CSO and partner.

“The traditional way of briefing a project and waiting for ideas doesn’t work anymore, we aim to break down the walls between us and our clients.”

Over the past 20 years, Elemental has worked with top-tier clients from rewards program Scene+ (scooping up two gold and two silver medals at the Canadian Marketing Association’s awards in 2020) to Baffin Boots’ (a silver and bronze winner that same year).

This year’s big campaigns include a rebrand for long-time client Recycle BC, with a Ted Lasso-style character motivating people to properly dispose of their recycling rather than simply fingerwagging. Baffin’s new CFL partnership, meanwhile, highlighted through Elemental’s “Passion Unites Us” campaign, featured the unvarnished CFL fervor of the company’s Hamilton-area staff.

An eight-year relationship with both brands certainly helped Elemental turn their ideas into impressive creative.

RiceSelect, by contrast, has only been a client since 2021, yet it also got Elemental’s human touch with a campaign featuring celebrity chef Jordan Andino. “We just wanted to speak to those foodies at heart – whether they’re making dinner for their kids, or they’re

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having a dinner party,” Brown says. “It was about people that are serious about finding the right product or ingredient for whatever it is they’re making.”

Drafting up complex campaigns with everyone in the room as part of Elemental’s Briefstorm process may seem like a timeconsuming exercise but, to Elemental, the process is really valuable – and Wardrop says clients love it. Most marketers, he points out, love to create but don’t get to do it a lot in their day job. Bringing them into the process gets them more engaged, which leads to better insights all around.

“What we’ve found, over and over again, is that it’s an exciting moment,” Wardrop says of the Briefstorm process. “The truth is it makes it faster for all of us to get to market quicker, and [clients] have knowledge that is so important to the success of any campaign.”

And it doesn’t necessarily require a significant pre-existing relationship. The Briefstorm process is, ultimately, about creating the space for a client and Elemental to have an open dialogue in a welcoming environment.

“We believe our approach has played a huge role in our success when it comes to winning new clients and growing existing partnerships.” concludes Dustin Brown. “Our future is in collaborating with our clients to help them make real human connections with their customers.”

CONTACT:

Dustin Brown Partner, head of strategy Dustin.Brown@elementalinc.com

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RIGHT: 3 Rice Select partnered with celebrity Chef Jordan Andino to build a creative platform focused on helping people find their inner chef.

4 Motivating recyclers, rather than disparaging littering, was the crux of Elemental’s campaign for Recycle BC.

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MEDIA INNOVATION AWARDS | 2023

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The MIAs honoured the great and growing role media plays in the marketing mix, as well as those responsible for the selection and execution of breakthrough campaigns.

Agencies and brands were recognized for their media creativity and innovation, while two formidable industry vets were crowned Media Leaders of the Year.

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photos by matt forsythe

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1. Arima's CMO Chris Williams takes the art deco-lit stage, which was inspired by The Carlu's 1930's architecture. | 2. Citizen Relations' Mike Lo Nam and Abeer Verma with their Gold "M" for Cheeto's "Cheetle in Cheadle." | 3. The Initiative team huddled together after picking up the PS Best of Show for the CDSS' "Inployable." | 4. Media Leader of the Year winner and GroupM CEO Kevin Johnson gives a moving speech after receiving a standing ovation. | 5. The team leads at KFC, Courage and Wavemaker after learning that their "Street Fighter" was awarded Best of Show. | 6. Fuse Creates' Steve Miller, Rita Steinberg and Luke Moore clutching onto their double Gold for "Hilton on the Green." | 7. The Globe Media Group's Penny Hicks poses with OMD CEO Cathy Collier, who also received a standing ovation before accepting her Media Leader of the Year award. | 8. PHD and Scotiabank's "Hockey Jersey" took home the Jury Prize for DEI. | 9. EssenceMediacom left with a Gold for Canadian Blood Services.

Winter 2024

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Catching up on our Correspondence

estie lved in W o v in n e e “I have b over 15 yrs. Your or rong.

Rescue f aign is w p m a c g hite marketin ighland W H t s e W That is a tties are either Sco . They Terrier. wheaten r o le d in gotten black, br This has . e it h w people are not with the h g u la is being quite a dogs and w o n k u might t a th wide. Yo d n a r a have it shared f sure you e k a m lions want to nding mil .” e p s e r o f g right be t is wron hing tha t e m o s n o - Karen

We’re sometimes baffled by emails that land on our desktops.

Strategy could probably charge a pretty penny for all the mail bag focus group findings we receive from the public, disgruntled or otherwise. Of course we won’t. Instead we’ll share a few letters we weren’t quite sure how to answer (given that we report on ads, we don’t make them). They did, however, reveal some delightfully unexpected insights into which campaigns/products have been resonating over the last few years.

“Hello, I was won dering w pair of li her ght up te ddy bear e can I purchase my gran s a ?2 dda it everyw ughter a teddy b yrs ago, I bough t ear, and here she she takes goe extremely attached s. Even to schoo l. takes this to me, a nd that’s She is teddy be ar every why she purchase where w a pair of ith her. If these ted over the I can dy bears mo - she wo to me wh on to be able to u ld be r enever o r wherev eceive and send father’s hugs er she is in anoth (she er c she gets anxiety w ity every other w goes to her eekend), hile she’s know wh an th ere I can purchase ere. Please let m d e these ted dy bears

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- Ana

for 3 Gore-tex coats “FarWest donated r mate and I for ou the skipper, first age ss Pa e Northwest voyage through th t oa the smallest sailb on quite possibly so, and believe it in 1995 to ever do in r mine – winters or not, I still wea ght n be harsh. Thou New Brunswick ca to use the coat in you might be able for its durability.” an advertisement - Liu

“Hi Subaru, I think that you are picking on the goat.

The truck does not go up roadle ss mountains or sail to england.

Who has a 20 foot boat anyway? Th is is clear goat persecution.”

- Mila

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