As brands tap into Canadian pride, advertisers weigh the risk of rallying cries turning into anti-American shade.
1418
Crafty strategies
How indie brewers are turning to culture, community and carbon-neutral storytelling to keep their pour steady.
When B2B goes B2C
Business brands are taking cues from consumer-facing ones, as they look to reshape how the industry goes to market.
4 Editorial Brands are rewriting their playbooks 6 Upfront The rise of traditionalism is strong among the modern generation, plus the marketer in charge of Loblaw Agency shares three things that make her team more creative, resourceful, and speedy, while beauty brand Evio refl ects on a year of going dark on social 50 Tribute SickKids remains undeniable at 150-years-old 54 Back Page Ian MacKenzie's new shop refelects on a history of innovation in Canada
ON THE COVER: Boom, bust, brew again. Canada's craft beer scene exploded in the 2010s, riding a wave of local love and hazy IPA hype. But now, with closures outpacing openings, costs bubbling up and shelves overcrowded, the taps are tightening. Still, brewers aren't calling last call. Instead, they're getting creative. From bizarre beer collabs and carbon-neutral ales, to artsy cans and local pride, indie makers are rewriting the recipe for survival as they fuel their next chapter. Cover illustration by Canadian artist Heidi Berton.
THE A-LIST
A look at the shops that are proving innovation and creativity are imperative to building brand equity
SUPPLEMENT Page 25
Canadian indie brewers, like Tin Whistle, are getting crafty with brews that stand out on shelf.
EDITOR’S NOTE
What happens when you go off script
It’s become a common belief that, when systems break down, when platforms get messy, and when politics get performative, brands can fill the gap.
Over the past few years, we’ve watched companies take on roles that used to belong to governments, institutions, even media. We’ve seen brave brands become referees in culture wars, custodians of climate goals, and even mental health advocates.
That’s a long list of expectations for something that used to just sit on a shelf. Not every brand is up for the job, of course. Some still default to noise and chase the same formats, platforms and messages as the rest. But there are some that are doing the work quietly and intentionally.
Take Evio, for example (p.7). The Canadian beauty brand recently hit the mute button on digital. The company said goodbye to social posting, email marketing and influencer endorsements. Instead, Evio re-invested its marketing budget into its retail relationships, putting boots on the ground and going into stores to educate sales associates. The result was a more-than-300% lift in annual sales and, more importantly, a sharpened sense of purpose: “We had to get quiet to figure out what really moved the needle,” said founder Brandi Leifso.
ACROSS MUCH OF THIS ISSUE, THERE'S A SHARED SHIFT IN MINDSET: STOP DOING WHAT'S EXPECTED.
That idea of resisting the expected echoes throughout this issue. In B2B, where logic and product specs once reigned supreme, brands are giving themselves permission to change the formula. As one participant in our roundtable discussion (p.18) put it, the buyer journey “isn’t a funnel, it’s chaos.” And in that chaos, clarity comes from creativity – not another white paper. That’s why marketers at companies like Microsoft, Mastercard and Telus are borrowing moves from the consumer playbook, building emotionally resonant and culturally aware campaigns that go beyond closing deals.
The craft beer industry is also going off script (p.14). Faced with rising costs and a shrinking share of drinkers, indie brewers are leaning into collaboration as a survival strategy. They’re literally finding strength in unity. Projects like Dominion City’s “Glorious and Free” cross-brewery collab or Alberta’s “Wyrd Bier” festival show what’s possible when an industry shifts away from solo acts.
Across much of this issue, there’s a shared shift in mindset: stop doing what’s expected. Here’s to the brands that don’t speak just because they have the mic, but because they actually have something to say. The ones no longer following the script, but rewriting it. You’ll find them in these pages.
Jennifer Horn, Content Director, Editor, strategy
SUMMER 2025 volume 36, issue 3 strategyonline.ca
publisher | lisa faktor | lfaktor@brunico.com
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congrats
CANADIAN CANNES LIONS 2025 JURORS
On behalf of the Canadian advertising industry, congratulations to the leaders named to this year’s Cannes Lions Awarding and ShortlistJuries.
AWARDING JURORS
XAVIER BLAIS Partner, Executive Creative Director, Rethink ENTERTAINMENT LIONS FOR SPORT
YAEL STAAV Director, Furlined/Merchant FILM CRAFT LIONS
ANNE-CLAUDE CHÉNIER Chief Creative Offcer, Cossette East OUTDOOR
KRISTA WEBSTER CEO, Veritas Communications; Meat & Produce PR LIONS
ANDREA COOK CEO, JAM CRM DIRECT
CANADIAN PROGRAM PARTNERS
TAJ CRITCHLOW Founder and Executive Producer, Fela ENTERTAINMENT LIONS FOR MUSIC
JOHN Global Chief Creative Offcer, Edelman DAN WIEDEN TITANIUM LIONS, JURY PRESIDENT
SHORTLIST JURORS
KELLEY CEO, Touché! CREATIVE DATA LIONS
ATHINA AFTON LALLJEE Creative Director, McCann AUDIO & RADIO
BROOKE LELAND President, Mekanism Media Canada MEDIA
CURTIS WESTMAN Creative Director, FCB Health Canada, an IPG Health Company HEALTH & WELLNESS
Chief Creative Offcer, No Fixed Address Inc. FILM
ALEXIS BRONSTORPH
JUDY
SAMANTHA
GRAHAM LANG Chief Creative Offcer, VML OUTDOOR LIONS
GROWING GEN Z SUBCULTURES
By Will Novosedlik
Soon after Vice Media’s Virtue Worldwide released findings on the rise of traditionalism among Gen Z, strategy spoke with the firm’s VP foresight Amy Davies to go deeper into the levers pulling them toward alt-right values. They spoke with Gen Z influencers, many of whom create content around the traditionalist subcultures below. “As disparate as they sound, what they all have in common is a craving for control in a chaotic world,” says Davies. “They all reject modernity and yearn for a mythical past, when things seemed simpler. They seek structure in a world that feels completely unmoored. They fear the future.” Let’s break it down.
Tradwives: Bread-making vs. bread-winning. This community espouses a return to traditional gender roles, where a woman’s value is rooted in homemaking and family care, rather than career ambition. Tradwives advocate for being stay-at-home mothers, embracing ultra-femininity and allowing their husbands to lead – often framed as a form of empowerment through choice.
Homesteaders: Farm livin’ is the life for me. Homesteader lifestyles range from large family farms and ranches to modest backyard plots. Many share a rejection of modernity, a yearning for simplicity and a deep skepticism of institutional authority. They are anti-big pharma, anti-big government and grow organic foods and products. Says Davies: “They have a real suspicion of globalism and western liberalism.”
Religious youth: God is back. Many Gen Zers are rebelling against their secular parents by embracing traditional religion. “There is this sense of disillusionment with godless modernity,” says Davies. They see religion as a safe space away from irony and digital nihilism. In their search for meaning and discipline, they crave a return to routine, ritual and sacred texts.
Conservative youth: If it ain’t woke, don’t fix it. Used to be that young people tended to lean left. Not these kids. For them, rebellion means an embrace of neo-conservatism and more traditional, hierarchical and nationalistic worldviews. “Fuelled by a sense that more democratic and leftist views failed to produce their promises of betterment,” says Davies, “they are drawn to a new system that promises order, discipline and meaning.”
Hustle bros: Wealth, health and testosterone. This group is driven by a sense that masculinity is under siege and must be reclaimed. “There is a certain simplicity in hustle bro culture,” says Davies. “It offers a way of how to behave as a man. Young boys are so confused in this new world.”
INTELLIGENCE
IN THE AISLES WITH LOBLAW’S JULIE PACHECO RETAIL
By Will Novosedlik & Jennifer Horn
Reporting to CMO Mary MacIsaac, Julie Pacheco is the VP of Loblaw Agency – the retailer’s in-house creative arm – where she oversees a 120-person team (plus a sizable freelance roster) responsible for everything from private label packaging and national campaigns to in-store radio and experiential programs. Her team supports product brands like PC and No Name, as well as banners such as Shoppers, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore and Loblaws. Even though she’s probably one of the busiest execs at Loblaw, we found time to chat with Pacheco about the three lenses – creative bravery, speed and resource allocation – that guide her and the team’s work.
#1: Make room for creative bravery
“We have a new CEO, Per Bank, who came from Europe. When he arrived, he immediately saw potential in the right-hand side of our Real Canadian Superstore, where there are categories like health, beauty, home and entertainment. The space these categories took up wasn’t proportionate to the sales they were generating. So we started rethinking that area in three locations, two in Ontario and one in the Maritimes. For the beauty category, we brought in more exclusive brands and installed paper-
Left: Vice Media’s Virtue took a deep dive into youth communities that are growing online.
mâché flowers. In the toy section, there’s a Lego bench for kids, a bulk candy wall and a Nerf gun display. It’s a completely different experience from what people expect in a Superstore. Per used to say, “I don’t even know if kids want to shop here,” and now they do. We worked on new colour palettes, photography styles, lighting and shelving. The goal was to warm it up and make it feel more modern and fun, sort of what you’d expect from Target. Sales jumped and customers even said they now come into the store on Saturdays just to hang out with their kids.
“What worked really well in this project was our creative bravery. We did things we haven’t done before. It was experiential. We knew that the customer was looking for a different experience on that side of the store. The goal was to have more customers coming there as a destination before shopping for groceries, to have them understand that our offering goes far beyond just food.”
#2: Move at the speed of relevance
“While the right-hand revitalization project took the better part of last year, our “Proudly Canadian” signage had to happen in a flash. Speed was the lead priority for this one, and it required perfectly tuned resource allocation. We were briefed on a Monday and, within two weeks, signs were already going up in stores. It was a quick, reactive campaign and we had to be very organized to pull this off quickly.
“We made sure that it was very clear to our customers that we are a Canadian company. But the real complexity was in helping Canadians find other Canadian products. So we created the “T” for products that have tariffs, which you see on the electronic price labels. We’ve implemented things like aisle fins around the price tags on the Canadian products. We’ve provided explanations of what it means to have a product with a tariff and a cost increase. The digital team also did a “swap and save” program, where if you buy digitally, you can choose Canadian alternatives on the PC app.”
#3: Allocate time for inspiration
“Bravery requires inspiration. To be inspired you have to look beyond the daily grind and see what is going on in the world. So we do what I call “store days.” I ask the leadership team to go look at one of our stores every quarter. And then each person gets a store outside of our line of business. I’m saying go to Home Depot, a local specialty store, just go and see different things. And then they come back and share their top learnings.
“I ask the team to answer three questions: What did you see that’s working? What are the opportunities? And what surprised you? Then we have a group discussion. Some great learnings come from our own stores. For example, noticing inconsistencies, like colours looking different on the printed signage than what was designed, or realizing an execution didn’t land the way we intended. Someone who went to Farm Boy took inspiration from how local and homegrown it felt. That helps us when thinking about our own local farmers program. It’s a real eye opener. We need to focus more on doing those kinds of things.”
MEDIA
GOING DARK
In a world where every brand is shouting into the same megaphone, Evio hit the mute button. The Canadian beauty brand – known for its clean skincare and eye patches –stepped back from online for a year. No more Instagram Reels, TikTok content, influencer collabs or even email marketing. Just digital darkness.
“We used to post online every single day,” says Evio founder Brandi Leifso. “But eventually, it just didn’t feel good anymore. It wasn’t driving revenue. The content didn’t feel revolutionary. And it was expensive to maintain.”
The break, which began January 2024, came after years of trying to make influencer marketing work. At one point, Evio was “paying $10,000 to $20,000 a post, and it felt like going to Vegas. You didn’t know what you’d get back,” she says. “We worked with 50 to 100 influencers, and only two were ever able to tell us what they converted in sales.”
By Jennifer Horn
an associate excitedly told her how many patches she’d sold because she told customers the founder lived around the corner. “You don’t get that on Instagram,” she says. “It feels local. It feels real.”
Evio also struck duty-free
partnerships with airports and has been co-creating eyepatch products with wax studios, spas and retailers. “We just focused on doing fewer things, better,” says Leifso. “We didn’t host events. We didn’t try to be everywhere. We focused on our retail partners.”
With Evio’s budget freed up, the company decided to hire a field team to educate retail associates on Evio’s products. “We’re in Shoppers Drug Mart, so we decided to go all-in on that relationship. We visit 60 stores a month, do in-person training, and I do founder visits. We treat the retail staff like our customers, because they are.”
That shift saw Evio’s sales grow 370% last year. And in 2025, sales are up more than 1,000% compared to the same time last year. The retail investment also led to a stronger connection to local communities. Leifso recalls stopping by her neighbourhood Shoppers, where
Now, after a year offline, Evio is returning to digital with a podcast this June. And the focus isn’t on product reviews or beauty tutorials: it’s how to cope with stress. “Our mission is to reduce the effects of stress. We want to normalize not having it all together. And that gives us a reason to be back on social.”
Going forward, Evio will only partner with creators on a revenueshare model, offering 20% to 50% of sales instead of flat fees. “We’re not taking on all the risk anymore,” says Leifso. Evio’s decision to unplug was about figuring out what to stop. “We had to get quiet to figure out what really moved the needle.”
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PATRIOTISM VS. ANTAGONISM
ABOUT A WEEK BEFORE the Canadian federal election this past spring, CNN ran a segment featuring host Laura Coates and guest Kevin O’Leary. Coates asked O’Leary if he thought Trump’s tariffs and his insistence on calling Canada the “51st State” would hurt America’s brand. O’Leary brushed the question aside as if such a thing were unimaginable.
However, some data paints a different picture. In midMarch, research firm Morning Consult released findings stating that since Trump took office in January, the average net favourability of the U.S. has fallen by roughly 20 points worldwide, with purchase consideration in Canada, Europe and Asia seeing some of the biggest
Clockwise, from top left: When the tariffs came, Pizza Pizza fired back with patriotism (and pepperoni); Doritos leaned into national pride with “I Won’t Apologize”; “Look for the Leaf” united 15 Canadian brands in a show of collective action; the “0% American cheese” ad tapped real anger over Donald Trump’s annexation threats.
AS CANADIAN BRANDS TAP INTO NATIONAL PRIDE AMID TRADE TENSIONS, DO FLAG-WAVING ADS RISK CROSSING INTO ANTI-AMERICAN SENTIMENT? BY WILL NOVOSEDLIK
declines. And according to a mid-February Leger poll, 27% of Canadians consider America as an “enemy country.” Meanwhile, a majority of Americans (56%) consider Canada an “ally.”
Johanna Faigelman, anthropologist and CEO of Human Branding, reminds us that historically Canadians have had an inferiority complex vis-a-vis Americans. “We’re like America’s nicer, more polite, less nationalistic and less individualistic little brother. But that narrative has shifted. Now our big brother wants to beat us up. So we don’t look up to him like we used to. And that has really messed with us. First we were shocked, then we freaked out and then just got really, really angry. And that’s not
the narrative we have always told ourselves about ourselves.”
This friction has been showing up in consumer behaviour. The same Leger poll showed that two-thirds of Canadians had reduced their purchases of American products, both in stores (66%) and online (67%); just over half (54%) had decreased purchases from QSRs, like McDonald’s and Starbucks; and 73% said they had increased their purchases of Canadian-made goods.
As a result, we’re seeing homegrown brands respond to this rise in national pride with a spate of ads donning the Canadian maple leaf. But the response is also raising questions among some advertisers: Is the industry reflecting public sentiment, or is it crossing the line between patriotism and antagonism?
A recent Cheesestrings campaign offers an interesting example. Its provocative headline, “Made with 0% American cheese,” risks defining Canadian identity by what it isn’t, says Ron Tite, chief strategy and innovation officer at agency Church+State. “I think things like that have the potential to damage Brand Canada. Saying that we aren’t American is not the same as saying we’re proudly Canadian. Better to believe in ourselves and keep our integrity intact.”
Sabrina Babooram, head of strategy at agency Academy agrees: “I think being anti-American is going to get tiring very quickly. There’s far more potential for our own brands to find the right tonality and build community across Canada.”
advertising by engaging our audiences in provocative ways?”
Take Maple Leaf Foods’ “Look for the Leaf” campaign. The company highlights 15 Canadian brands, other than their own – including Clearly Canadian, Chapman’s Ice Cream, Gay Lea, Dare Foods, Schneiders, High Liner, and others – and encourages Canadians to “Shop the leaf, even if it isn’t ours… because Canadians buying Canadian benefits us all.” It doesn’t get more authentically Canadian than that. The campaign reflects an intuitive truth that, as a culture, we tend to be more focused on the collective good than on individualism.
“This is a huge opportunity for brands that are authentically Canadian to stand up and say ‘don’t forget who we are. And who we are as Canadians is not, ‘I hate the enemy.”’
Sabrina Babooram
“0% American” came from reading the room,” says Marty Hoefkes, CD at Broken Heart Love Affair, the agency behind the Cheestrings work. “When everyone’s reaction to the idea of being America’s 51st state was ‘not a snowball’s chance in hell,’ we felt that being a 100% Canadian cheese brand gave us the license to put those odds in a headline. We knew there was a chance of some backlash and even had a PR team assembled to counter it, but it wasn’t necessary. The response was entirely in our corner, even from all the Americans who talked about it.”
Phillip Haid, CEO of social impact agency Public, concurs with Hoefkes in that “companies are tapping into the sentiment that Canadians are feeling in a very real way. Brands either reflect culture or shape it, and right now these patriotic campaigns are reflecting it. And I think they are reflecting it appropriately...
“[However,] there is a role for Canadian brands to ask what it really means to be Canadian. And how can we reflect that in our
“This is a huge opportunity for brands that are authentically Canadian to stand up and say, ‘Don’t forget who we are. And who we are as Canadians is not, ‘I hate the enemy,’” adds Babaroom, who was dismayed to see some coffee houses had swapped out “Americano” with “Canadiano” on their menu, which came across as slightly hostile. “At the same time it does not have to be bland and ‘kumbaya.’ It can have some teeth. But the difference is that it’s about us, not about us vs. them.”
Perhaps the best example of this is the recent remake of Molson’s iconic “I Am Canadian” rant from 25 years ago. While the original poked fun at how Americans misunderstand us, it also playfully mocked Canadians while boasting about what makes us great. The remake brings it up to date by adding references to the 51st State while continuing to gently rib at Canada (“the birthplace of universal medical healthcare and the bench-clearing brawl” and “the birthplace of peanut butter, ketchup chips and yoga pants!” for example). It doesn’t finish with “I am Canadian,” but rather with “We are Canadian.”
There’s no question Canadians are frustrated, but will the flareup become fervour? Or will the “anti-American” sentiment tire out?
Hoefkes believes that all movements tend to die out once “everyone jumps on board” and that “part of our job is paying attention to how people are feeling and meeting them where they are, not fighting to pull them to where we want them. And as long as you’re genuine and have some reason to join the conversation, there’s room for brands to reflect all the emotions that people feel – not just the warm, fuzzy, happy ones.”
That said, “just like it says on Quebec license plates – Je Me Souviens – we will remember,” adds Tite. “I think there will still be a pro-Canadian attitude long after the tariffs go away.”
NEUROSCIENCE MEETS NATIONALISM
“There’s a collective psychological shift underway in Canada – from the perception of being spineless to that of growing a backbone,” says Brainsights’ Jasmin Amin, having spent the last few months literally studying the minds of Canadians since Trump took office.
The communications strategist and her team at the neuromarketing firm conducted brain scans in Fredericton, Montreal, Toronto and Calgary to determine people’s emotional response to the commercials and content made in response to the U.S. President’s takeover threats.
“The prevailing narrative of Canadians is that we are nice,” says Amin. “But our research reveals that Canadians are really looking for brands to be bold, to put a patriotic stake in the ground that says we’re proud to be Canadian. We don’t need to be uber polite in this situation.”
In Brainsights’ research, this attitude has been consistent across the country. Even in Alberta, where tensions around the notion of separation are high at the moment, Brainsights saw deep moments of resonance with the recent “We are Canadian” commercial remake, especially at the point when the spot positioned Donald Trump as the villain.
Brainsights discovered messaging that’s landing with Canadians is a mix of bold expressions of identity, clever humour and clear cultural symbolism. She points to ads by Doritos (“I Won’t Apologize,” pictured above right) – where nolonger-apologetic Canadians sing a rendition of “I Will Survive,” insisting that they “have no more sorry’s left to give” – and Pizza Pizza (“Reverse Tariffs”) – a 25% off
pizza code to help Canadians bite back against tariffs. There were similar responses to a This Hour has 22 Minutes “Buy Canadian” spoof. It struck a chord with the line, “We all need to do our part, but there is only one winner in a trade war… Loblaws.” It resonates not just for its humour, but because it taps into a shared skepticism about the gap between corporate messaging and consumer experience.
We also come with historical receipts. In a recent Liberal election campaign video, “Good Neighbours Always,” Trump is shown talking about the lack of help Canada has given to the U.S. – but is then immediately followed by apowerful montage of Canada’s real, historic acts of solidarity: Newfoundland taking in grounded planes after 9/11 and Canadian firefighters aiding during California’s wildfires. Amin says Canadians responded positively to the spot because “this moment doesn’t just refute misinformation – it affirms Canada’s global character, transforming skepticism into emotional resonance.”
CANADA’S 2025 CANNES YOUNG LIONS
CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE WINNING TEAMS!
Each year, the Canadian Young Lions Competition brings out the best young talent in the advertising and marketing industry.
This year, 784 competitors across seven competition categories tackled a challenging brief under extreme time pressure for their chance to qualify and compete in the Global Young Lions Competition at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this June. Welcome to the only competition where winning gets you more work – in Cannes, France.
ARIELLE
SUZANNE
ANTHONY
RAFAELA STEINER
RILEY WOLFE
CAROLINE PELLEGRINI
KATHERINE BALL
Manager, Danone Canada
ALEXANDRE PÉPIN Creative Copywriter, LG2
NICOLAS ROBERT Executive Producer and Partner, Carton Rouge
CAMERON MARSHALL Director of Photography, Publicis
QUINLAN BRUCE Junior Copywriter, Leo Burnett Canada
ROXANNE PELLETIER Copywriter, LG2
THOMAS SOTO Director, Les Enfants
CARA VON ENDE Account Supervisor, No Fixed Address
REAGAN SULLIVAN Project Manager, No Fixed Address
PATRICIA VUCKOVIC PR Manager, Rethink PR
SARA ZIVKOVIC PR Coordinator, Rethink PR
JESSICA ANDERSON Account Manager, Craft Public Relations
MADELINE RESTON Consultant, APEX PR
ANNA IRA Coordinator, Social, Tadiem
ELYSSA BIRINGER UI Designer, Super Proper
MRIGA SUCHDEVA Senior Art Director, The Garden
NUALA MURRAY Senior Copywriter, The Garden
NICOLE VASAREVIC Senior Digital Strategist, Cossette
The gamer-friendly taproom at Analog, an Edmonton brewery that was also home to bizarre beer at the “Wyrdstock” fest.
Crafting a comeback Crafting a comeback Crafting a comeback
FACED WITH RISING COSTS AND A DECLINE IN DRINKERS, CANADA’S INDIE BREWERIES ARE DRIVING DISCOVERY THROUGH COLLABS, CULTURE TAPPING AND CLIMATE STRATEGIES.
BY SCOTT MESSENGER
Many consumers tend to have preconceptions about beer: it’s yellow, massproduced by multinational corporations, and best enjoyed while mowing the lawn. None of that is untrue, but craft beer needs you to know that it’s different. In contrast, craft products are often brewed in small batches by locally owned companies, made with high-quality ingredients, and come in more flavours and styles than, well, yellow. And it needs you to know this for the sake of its survival.
“The industry has reached more of a mature state,” Hilary Hoogsteen, who handles marketing and communications for the Canadian Craft Brewers Association, tells strategy , referencing Canada’s roughly 1,200 craft breweries. According to her, 2024 marked the first year in which brewery closures in Canada outpaced openings. “We were on a very aggressive growth trajectory for a number of years, and now we’re starting to level off.”
Costs are the main culprit. Ingredients, rent and government taxes on alcohol production continue to climb, which is tightening margins across the board. At the same time, craft breweries face mounting competition not just from each other, but from global conglomerates acquiring local brands and from a growing wave of non-
beer options, like canned cocktails, hard seltzers and non-alcoholic beverages.
Consumers (especially younger generations) are also drinking less and putting added pressure on small producers. Add to that U.S. President Trump’s recent reinstated tariffs on imported aluminum –including the kind used for beer cans – and costs are climbing even higher for brewers, with many Canadian brewers importing cans from American manufacturers.
But Hoogsteen isn’t convinced brewers are seeing the pint glass as half empty. If anything, it’s full of liquid courage.
“We’re seeing a lot of these breweries really start to get creative” – from running weird beer festivals and building artistpowered labels to brewing national pride into every pint. It’s a new stage of maturity for the industry. “I think breweries are going to continue to adapt,” says Hoogsteen. “While there are a lot of challenges right now, there are also a lot of bright spots.”
Here are how a few companies are tapping into those bright spots to show consumers the value of choosing local lager and ale.
A LITTLE “WYRD”
Shrimp cocktail beer, anyone? How about a lemongrass coconut IPA? Maybe a mashed potato lager would hit the spot? Those were among the offerings of the 2025 Wyrd Bier Adventure, a month-long festival of extreme and unorthodox craft beer creativity organized annually by Edmonton’s Analog Brewing Company.
The festival is an invention born out of necessity. Back in 2013, Analog cofounders and self-proclaimed “beer and gaming culture nerds” Adam Corsaut and Bryan Launier, along with other likeminded breweries in the province, helped create the Northern Alberta Brewers Alliance. Corsaut, Analog Brewing’s president, likens the unofficial craft beer brain trust to “a grouptherapy session for brewery owners.” But it’s also more than a place to commiserate – members also team up to lower costs by buying supplies in bulk, and brainstorm ways to boost revenue. At one session, “we were talking about doing an event to get people in during the winter. And that’s when Bryan came up with it.”
Wyrd Bier launched in early 2023, inspired
in part by American cask festivals that Launier and another brewing buddy reminisced about over beers one night. The idea involved inviting indie breweries in Edmonton to develop bizarre brews that would challenge drinkers’ perceptions of what beer can be. There are beers every year to which “people will [respond], ‘I see what they’re going for; I did not care for it. But, you know what? It was fun to try,’” says Corsaut.
The winter festival is designed to be a new path to discovery. It invites beer adventurers to visit 19 different breweries listed on the back of a concert ticket for the “Wyrdstock” themed event in 2025. The ticket acts as a passport that’s stamped when the holder visits a taproom. Prizes are then offered to those who snag a stamp at either 16 or 19 breweries – the rewards included 400 “Wyrd Bier Chalices” and only 100 “Medals of Absolute Coolness.”
After handing out 1,000 tickets at the festival’s start, they awarded all of the 100 medals on day 10. By the time the wyrdness came to a close, most of the participating breweries reported year-over-year revenue increases of around 30%. “There are Edmontonians who don’t even know we exist, so this festival is just getting that word out
so that we build [a stronger local] craft beer culture,” says Corsaut. The alliance is already planning the 2026 festival. Additions may include shuttle service and a hotel partner for a growing number of adventurers from out of town. The roster may expand, too.
“The two rules [for participating] are: be Edmonton-and-area owned and operated, and don’t be an asshole,” says Corsaut. “That’s it. It’s all about being creative and welcoming. The way to do that,” he adds, “is by saying, ‘Nice to see you,’ with a big smile and a good beer.” Or a wyrd one.
PATRIOTISM ON TAP
On a snowy walk home from work soon after U.S. President Trump once again took office, Dominion City Brewing’s Josh McJannett mulled over the emotional fallout of tariffs and tough talk. “You really started to feel powerless,” says the co-founder and president of the Ottawa-based brewery. “I was hearing that from a lot of people – that something terrible is happening and you really can’t do very much about it. But you know, we do control some things. We control that we make good beer.”
As he made his way home that day, McJannett called his contact at Northern
Dominion City’s “Glorious and Free” unites brewers nationwide with a collaborative IPA made entirely from Canadian ingredients.
Army, Dominion’s longtime branding agency, and said he wanted to make a beer “of Canada.” He asked what that would look like – the answer was “Glorious and Free,” a trans-Canadian, collaborative IPA.
Dominion provided the base recipe and labels bearing a beaver in boxing gloves, both of which breweries could adapt. In return, McJannett asked two things: make the beer using entirely Canadian ingredients, and donate a portion of the proceeds to a local cause that fit the campaign’s criteria of acknowledging their shared history as a nation, fostering inclusivity, or supporting those actively contributing to a better future. Breweries could do so however they saw fit.
By mid-spring, some 40 breweries in every province and the Yukon had brewed a version of Glorious and Free, directly supporting Canadian maltsters, hops growers and yeast manufacturers, as well as local charities. Based on what he’s seen so far, McJannett expects the impact to be significant. For Dominion alone, he anticipates having sold 25,000 cans of its version of Glorious and Free, which began seeing distribution through the LCBO in June. Combined with efforts across the country, he
estimates charitable donations from the project to be in the tens of thousands and spending on local supplies to reach as much as $100,000.
Other results may be harder to measure yet no less meaningful. While McJannett doesn’t deny the value of national name recognition – “Glorious and Free” beer cans also bear Dominion City’s logo – he sees even more value in the goodwill the endeavour may generate. “It’s meant to reinforce something that we want people to see in our brand, which is that we play well with others and we’re interested in a cause greater than ourselves,” he says.
Ultimately, “Glorious and Free” is meant to unify independent businesses in supporting those who have supported them. It’s a pint raised to taking action.
“It’s not about the President of the United States, and it’s not about a political party or a policy,” says McJannett. “I think it’s really about a positive articulation of who we are as a country, as a community and as an industry.”
CLIMATE-CONSCIOUS CRAFT
Years ago, when married couple Alexis and Tim Esseltine first felt the pull of entrepreneurship, their need to “do what we were supposed to do as responsible parents” made them resist. In Toronto at the time, they’d just started a family. Tim had dreamed of opening a microbrewery in the subway system, but salaried desk jobs were far less risky. When COVID took those jobs away, that old feeling returned.
Tin Whistle Brewing – one of B.C.’s oldest craft breweries – was conveniently up for sale in Penticton. The Esseltines closed the deal in October 2020 and relocated with their now three children to the Okanagan Valley. There were other ways, they believed, that they could be responsible.
Today, Tin Whistle is B.C.’s first carbonneutral brewery. It represents a dovetailing of the couple’s educations: Tim’s masters degree touched on brewery business strategies; while Alexis’s covered green businesses. They did a full energy and waste audit of the brewery, even spilling a dumpster across the floor to assess its contents. “There’s that old adage you can’t manage what you don’t measure,”
One of Canada’s first carbon-neutral breweries, Tin Whistle’s Alexis and Tim Esseltine are crafting a greener path forward in B.C.
says Alexis. From there, they made their plan to pursue zero-carbon status. Now, they don’t even own a garbage can. A few carbon credits purchased from B.C. initiatives is offsetting any overage Alexis is still working on.
From a profitability perspective, the effort makes sense. Measures to reduce input costs have comfortably widened margins – whether that’s heating brewing kettles for less time, or salvaging spent rice from a nearby sake maker for unique brews. It’s also been a marketing exercise, with the couple leveraging the story behind transforming a 30-year-old brewery into a model of sustainability for an energyand resource-intensive industry.
“We’re really public about it,” says Alexis. “We don’t hide it.”
The company website, for example, openly tracks the progress of Tin Whistle’s green initiatives. And every can lid bears the words “carbon neutral,” literally getting up in consumers’ faces. Alexis doesn’t think they mind. She’s convinced post-COVID spenders are more mindful with their money. “We’re seeing that they really need to align their values with the products that they’re buying.”
What’s more, Tin Whistle drinkers are skewing young, a demographic that tends not to question things like climate change.
“[For] a lot of the younger generation, these values are ingrained,” says Alexis. “If you’re coming to the table with some good storytelling and legitimate claims, it’s really meaningful for that [age] set.” (Brewing awardwinning beer doesn’t hurt, either – Tin Whistle earned three medals at the 2024 Canada Beer Cup.)
Beer make curating culture
MUSIC A seasoned marketer before co-founding Toronto’s Henderson Brewing in 2013, Steve Himel knows that “people worship their brands with their wallets.” He knows that applies to their favourite bands, too.
Canadian prog-rockers Rush contacted Himel after Henderson crafted a beer inspired by lead singer and bassist Geddy Lee, asking to make a beer under the group’s name. A worshipper of the trio himself since his teenage years, Himel cautiously agreed. “We wouldn’t be involved if Rush were not involved.”
Himel wanted consumers – that is, fans – to know the band had a hand in making what’s now a series of beers, led by an ale made entirely of Canadian ingredients, that launched in 2021.
Rush beer exports to 30 countries, says Himel, and is licensed for production at a Scottish brewery for U.K. and European distribution. No other Henderson beer has seen such reach – and it’s also a taproom draw. Henderson’s annual “Rush Day” is a ticketed, revenue-generating affair featuring guest speakers, equipment and props from Rush tours, movies and more. The brewery expects up to 1,200 attendees this August.
Overall, Himel sees the project as a triple win. Despite no longer making music, Rush refreshes its brand through the beer and an accompanying line of branded merch. Fans reconnect with them in a fun, authentic way. And, says Himel, Henderson Brewing “gets to piggyback on one of the world’s greatest rock bands.”
Between walking the walk and talking about it, Alexis feels the efforts are positioning the brewery for the future. “There’s a lot of good that can come from doing the right thing,” she says. “And it can mean a successful business at the end of the day, too.”
ART From the start, Collective Arts CEO Matt Johnston has thought of his brewery as “an art gallery.” Even before the Hamilton-based indie beer brand poured its first pint at Toronto’s boutique Gladstone Hotel in 2013, it’s been issuing global calls for artwork for its cans. In the first year, it received 800 submissions, accepting only 93.
One reason for the effort was surprisingly altruistic for a startup in a business with notoriously slim margins. Johnston and the team were worried that artists “get stuck in their own industry echo chamber,” he says. “So how do we help them break out of that?”
Another reason wasn’t altruistic, but whimsically practical. Collective Arts wanted packaging that reflected the quality of the contents, setting it apart on crowded liquor store shelves. “Craft beer is all about creativity on the inside – how do you apply that creativity on the outside?” says Johnston.
That question has since led to 40,000 submissions from global artists, with the work of 2,500 featured and more than $1 million paid for rights. Some creators are also showcased on the company’s website, a content hub that spotlights profiles of the artists and more art.
Johnston calls Collective Arts a “lifestyle” brand and has expanded production to include cider, spirits and ready-to-drink cocktails, as well as health-conscious nonalcoholic versions and energy and wellness drinks infused with herbs and vitamins. Today, Collective Arts is a $30-million operation – or, if you like, refrigerated art installation.
“We believe that a creative world is a better world,” says Johnston. “So how do we do our part to put some creativity into the everyday?”
Business brands break the mould
Once considered the quieter sibling to B2C, B2B marketing is coming into its own. BY
JENNIFER HORN
B2B marketing has traditionally been a behind-the-scenes effort, focused on direct sales and relationship building. But more brands are advertising around cultural moments, like the Super Bowl. And Cannes Lions debuted a B2B category last year, further signaling an evolution. The creative is also less homogenous. Instead of sticking to a sales approach centred on product specs and pricing decks, many have embraced consumer-style campaigns. To understand the changing nature of B2B, we sat down with Nisha Carcasole, VP, consumer marketing, sponsorships, Mastercard; Audrey Davidson, head of integrated marketing Americas, Microsoft; Scott Lanaway, managing partner, Titan One; Ian Martins, EVP, managing director, Zenith; Devon MacDonald, president, CEO, Cairns Oneil; Tristan Retelsdorf, lead director, brand, digital, customer marketing at Telus, and Daniel Shearer, CMO, Maple. Here is what they had to share.
What do you believe is driving the appetite for more creative brand-building in B2B?
Tristan Retelsdorf: I’m on Instagram just as much as any other consumer. So this idea that the only way you can reach a B2B buyer is through an official trade publication or a newsletter is actually false. Everyone is on Meta. Everyone’s Googling. Everyone acts like a consumer. And I think that overlap between how consumers and B2B buyers buy is much closer than you think.
We’ve seen a lot of success in embracing mass marketing in order to build our own brand awareness. It changes a bit as the conversation goes down the funnel, and you start talking about pricing, spec sheets and pitch decks. Then it starts to feel a little bit
more B2B. But at the top of the funnel, you’re just trying to build brand awareness, good creative, or an idea that stands out and is going to help you six months from now when the buy occurs.
Audrey Davidson: In traditional sales for B2B, it’s always been based on relationships. Emotions will open the door and logic will close the deal. So creating an emotional connection is really important for us to be able to build on trust, which builds confidence, and takes us further.
Ian Martins: What differentiates businesses from a technological capability standpoint has eroded, because it’s easier to copy the feature sets from one business to another. There’s a need to create an emotional connection beyond the particular features of products and services. I think you see a lot of that pressure in SaaS businesses right now, where AI is heading. Someone can now replicate
your SaaS business, even internally in some cases. So having a brand and that emotional connection is going to be really important as we go forward.
Daniel Shearer: The question for me is, why don’t most agencies want to work on B2B? It’s very category dependent, but it’s where the revenue is. Why aren’t big strategic and creative brains – in the agency context – wanting to work on these big stock-pricemoving problems? That’s something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve stepped into my role at Maple, and how it’s not B2C or B2B, it’s B2H: business-to-human. We all know that people engage emotionally, and that you close the deal functionally or rationally. And I’m noticing a willingness to dive more into that now than in my 20 or 25 years in the industry.
Davidson: And I’d like to add to that it’s also become a lot more orchestrated, because it’s not just one buyer. You’ve got a buying
group. And so it’s the whole influence sphere that matters. For example, let’s say you have five leads, but they’re all architects. I don’t need that. I need one from every function at a company to actually make the sale. So we need to think broader and more orchestrated in how we’re approaching it. And digital allows us to speed up and be more agile than we could in the past.
Scott Lanaway: This is where we’re starting to find opportunity, where you’re targeting people in different roles at different companies and influencing them at different stages, in different ways. We’re actually starting to see value in how we’re influencing target accounts, understanding that these buying decisions are complex. It’s disingenuous to think that one e-book with amazing content talking about how you can master digital transformation is going to win over the CIO. We’re craving more risk taking and creativity from our clients. And the
Clockwise from top left: Microsoft’s Audrey Davidson, Telus’ Tristan Retelsdorf, Titan
One’s Scott Lanaway, Globe Media Group’s Shaenie Colterjohn, Zenith’s Ian Martins, Maple’s Daniel Shearer, Cairns
Oneil’s Devon MacDonald, and Mastercard’s Nisha Carcasole. Globe Media Group’s Tracy Day (not pictured).
marketing teams also want it. The CMOs are having a hard time selling it at the top.
Martins: New entrants and established brands take a very different approach to B2B marketing. If you’re a startup trying to take on large incumbents, you’re going to have different tools and tactics. So to make things even more complex, it depends on what kind of
Lanaway: We have clients who spend a lot of money on market research to understand brand sentiment, what’s happening in the market and where competitors are winning, and then they try to feed that into their strategy. The issue is when you don’t think of the brand as a multi-dimensional, multi-directional entity that’s much bigger than a campaign.
What does it take to build a brand that’s trusted by employees and buyers alike?
Devon MacDonald: If you’re selling a particular value or proposition and it’s not felt throughout the organization, you need to stop promoting those items. Because it will work once or twice, but it won’t work in the long term. I view trust as the most important brand metric in B2B.
business you are, and what kind of businesses you’re talking to.
Nisha Carcasole: A large part of B2B marketing is the employees within an organization. Are the employees knowledgeable about the products and not just the key selling features? What are the differentiators? What is the solution that you’re looking for in this product? You can throw millions of dollars at a campaign, but when they try to talk to somebody within the organization, if they aren’t able to articulate the same emotions that you’re trying to evoke, then you’re not going to end up closing that sale. So there’s a lot of fundamental work that has to be done too so that there’s consistency across the organization.
People like following people, not brands. And so how do you leverage your employee base to be those spokespeople?
- Ian Martins
Retelsdorf: I agree, you need to let go of the idea that the buyer journey is linear. If you actually map it out, it’s chaos. It’s not that you need one piece of content to unlock them all. You need a little bit of everything. The trick is, how do I get a consistent message across 10, 15 or 20 different points? And also for 10 or 15 different types of products. The challenge of being a B2B marketer is navigating that ever-expanding matrix and message.
Shearer: The need for values alignment on the B2C side really peaked around seven to eight years ago. And what’s interesting is that if you really think about where your dollars go as a consumer versus where your dollars go as a B2B company, you can argue that values alignment in B2B should be more important, too. Because it’s not only a bigger cheque, but you’re making a buying decision on behalf of more people than just yourself. So I think that is actually a big opportunity. You don’t have to believe all the same things. But if an organization can be very clear on why they exist in the world, what their mission is, and find points of connection to the buying side – that is way more powerful than saying, “we’ve got product superiority, and you’re looking to be the best.”
Lanaway: Yes, we’re seeing more of an emphasis on the values alignment piece across the board. We can do this a little bit differently and have some form of intent that goes beyond the veneer of a linear value proposition.
Davidson: Microsoft runs on trust internally. We all use Copilot. We all share our prompts and stories with the team. And it’s not something that’s necessarily a mandate, but it’s something that people are embracing. We also find that, when our employees or subject matter experts share on social media, there’s 15 times more engagement. We also have a very high achieving culture. We hear a lot about generative AI in different forms, but there’s still so much that people don’t know or trust about it. So how we can help people to learn is a big part of the culture within. And then that transpires externally.
Martins: People like following people, not brands. And so how do you leverage your employee base to be those spokespeople? How do you make everybody famous so that they can talk about the brand and get more visibility. You see this movement in the startup world, where they’re building their social channels around the founder, as opposed to the actual business. And they’re talking about what’s working, what’s not, or what features they’re developing.
Carcasole: Creating excitement within the organization, and building a culture of constant knowledge and upskilling – that’s what’s going to help drive your B2B brand.
MacDonald: The personal advocacy of employees is incredibly smart, and it’s the next step of the referral, which is a demonstration of brand experience. And one of the most important things in B2B marketing is the ability to have confidence in the product and to provide a positive brand recommendation. Because, if employees don’t believe it and cannot advocate for it, how in the world can you trust a client to make the investment?
Retelsdorf: To add to that, I like how Shopify’s vision is to basically make the life of becoming an entrepreneur easier. There are so many things that are a pain – Shopify’s job is to remove that. I love the clarity on that from a brand perspective. They said, “You shall use
AI because it makes our products better and it helps our customers be better.” It was like the ultimate form of eat-your-own-dog-food, and that will drive the business forward.
We’re craving more risk taking and creativity. And the marketing teams also want it. The CMOs are having a hard time selling it at the top.
- Scott Lanaway
Carcasole: The biggest thing is also just being authentic to who your brand is and your overall narrative. You have to know where you can play and where you can’t. When brands try to stretch themselves into an environment where people aren’t used to seeing them, or when they overextend themselves, buyers see into that. Also, B2B sponsorships don’t always have to be for a B2B audience or carry a B2B message. A few years ago, with our partnership with MLB
Are there any risks in leaning too far into emotional brand-building when you’re selling very complex products and services?
Martins: I think the risk is being boring. For some reason, when marketers get into their B2B role, they put on this hat that says everything’s logical. Of course, not every B2B topic is particularly exciting and so it can just be dry. You’re producing these long white papers that nobody’s ever reading. You’re putting all of this effort into going deep and providing value, but nobody’s reading it because it’s dry and it’s boring. And so from a media investment perspective, I think putting dollars behind boring is the biggest risk that you face.
in the U.S., we used one of our products to help verify the All-Star Game vote for MLB using our NuDetect software. It was a great use-case of our product. And the message was for both B2B and B2C. It changed the perception of Mastercard. And it was all done through a B2C sponsorship. But telling the product story and its impact helped us also tell the story to our B2B audience.
How are your brands reinventing the B2B journey for younger digital-friendly generations coming into business now?
Davidson: At Microsoft, for the first time in a long time, we did a Super Bowl commercial and it was for Copilot. We also recently did
something with Coldplay, where you could go onto a site and basically create an online video with one of their newest releases. So things like that appeal to younger generations, but then also getting that awareness for Copilot. And there is Running Point on Netflix where you see Copilot integrated. That’s newer for Microsoft, where we’re elevating awareness for the brand.
MacDonald: Integrating Microsoft into a Netflix show that’s a part of culture is interesting. So now, when Copilot is introduced to the workspace of someone who watched the show, they’ll feel comfortable with it and be more willing to embrace it. That early lead-in and investment is a challenging thing to sell at times. But seeing the product or tech usage in everyday life will make adoption or acceptance much easier. Sponsorships used to be the only
Emotions will open the door and logic will close the deal. Creating an emotional connection builds trust and confidence, which takes us further.
- Audrey Davidson
way to do that. People would feel comfortable with a brand because they see it on a ring board or on a jersey, for example. And that used to be the only way. But there are so many other content opportunities to integrate a brand that will be a part of culture.
Lanaway: Those brands that have bigger budgets and a B2C component also have a stronger marketing culture internally. So it’s a bit of an easier pitch to say, “Let’s do a big investment.” But I’m seeing more brands that don’t have that B2C gravity starting to do things
like that. For some brands, it’s like a hedge fund company has come in and they’ve said, “We’ve got a really aggressive plan to grow the business like crazy for the next three to five years. We’re going to give you a lot of money to grow your sales and marketing team. All you have to do is show us documentation every quarter that it’s working.” And then there’s a culture of panic that descends down through the organization. And in that kind of a culture, do you want to be the one who goes in and pitches to the C-Suite that we should allocate 50% of our marketing budget to the brand, and part of that should include a Formula One sponsorship?
Shearer: Investing in brand has been London School of Economics-proven, not some cool dude at a cool agency in San Francisco-proven. But performance marketing is like catnip, where the second you can watch the needle moving, all the dollars race there. And don’t even get me started on whether or not attribution is actually legitimate. And the truth is that the more incremental the sale is to your business, the harder it is to attribute. Because digital is so great at capturing intent. It’s amazing that we have that as a part of the modern media mix. The problem with it is we become addicted to the drug of measurement and attribution only. I think we need more creativity – we need to be more brave. Being integrated into culture is a fantastic win. You look at GoDaddy. They started running ads during the Super Bowl many years ago. And then you think about the amazing Volvo “Epic Split.” Or the “Beauty Inside with Intel.” These were brands that were way ahead of their time. They were using a consumer-level of creativity for a B2B audience that was maybe less measurable. But they clearly inserted those brands, either in culture or in consumer audiences, in a totally different way. Let’s remember “Epic Split” was to sell long-haul trucks.
Martins: We need more bravery and boldness in general. We need to value creative ideas that will generate emotional energy and response, and really invest in those things. And then all the other things that we are asked to do that are more around lead-gen building opportunities for the sales funnel – those canons should exist underneath that. But again, it’s very hard to get pure B2B brands to be willing to take a risk internally and say, “We’re not going to do this race to the bottom anymore.”
IN B2B, TRUST BUILDS BRANDS
Conversation builds momentum.
As the B2B landscape evolves, meaningful dialogue is more important than ever. That’s why Globe Media Group proudly partners with strategy to support this roundtable series that explores what’s next – from trust and creativity to content relevance and value alignment.
These forums bring together industry experts to share insights, spark new thinking, and help shape the future of marketing in Canada.
Backed by the reach and credibility of The Globe and Mail, we help Canada’s media leaders engage the audiences who shape business and culture.
Stay connected at globemediagroup.ca
Where ambition meets influence.
As brands face mounting pressure to stay relevant in a fragmented, fast-moving landscape, strategy is taking center stage. No longer a behind-the-scenes function, it’s become a driving force – shaping brand purpose, guiding creative and connecting across platforms and disciplines. This year’s A List celebrates those bringing sharper thinking to every touchpoint. Today’s agencies are solving harder problems with bigger ideas. Smart, adaptive and creatively led, these agencies are helping brands drive real impact. Read on to get the full story.
Connecting creativity and impact
Zulu Alpha Kilo’s ght against sameness fuels global growth and standout work
M“MOST BRANDS AREN’T LOSING TO THE COMPETITION –they’re losing to irrelevance and indifference,” explains Zulu Alpha Kilo president and CEO Mike Sutton.
That insight is the foundation of the agency’s philosophy –a ght against “sameness” that’s become its platform, cultural lens and the driving force behind its recent expansion.
Z.A.K.’s 2022 growth – including the launch of an integrated media buying and planning arm and new of ces in Vancouver and New York – wasn’t about chasing scale. It was about creating the right conditions for bolder ideas and broader impact. Just over two years later, that groundwork is powering standout campaigns, strong brand platforms and a pipeline of culturally sharp, business-savvy work.
Z.A.K. was never built to grow for growth’s sake, Sutton explains – “our creative ambitions are what drives us. Sure, growth has followed, but always deliberately and in support of the work and the culture behind it.” The agency’s expanded footprint, for example, has helped deepen its bench of creative talent. It’s also created room for new kinds of opportunities, including three Super Bowl campaigns for Booking.com. Ambitious work like this re ects how far the agency has come,
and how its foundation continues to support what comes next.
“We’ve been ghting ‘sameness’ since 2008,” says CCO Brian Murray. “It’s about connecting creativity and impact. That mindset is ingrained in everything we do.”
The agency is focused on growing that creative impact while staying grounded in what’s made it successful: a clear purpose, a vibrant creative culture and a commitment to attracting top-tier talent.
"Everything we do starts and ends with the creative,” says Murray. “That’s what draws people here – clients and talent alike. We’re trying to be the best place to make the best work.”
That intention extends to its leadership. “It’s important for us to constantly set new goals and push the bar higher,” says Sutton. “That’s what galvanizes teams – when you’re collectively chasing something bold, maybe even a little out of reach. Our job as leaders is to set that bar and then put the conditions in place to make it happen.”
That same mindset carries into how the agency works with its clients. We like to think of our clients as coconspirators,” he says. “When they bring us in close, share the real challenges, and let us get inside the business problem – that’s when we create our most impactful work.
You see it in long-standing client relationships like Pizza Pizza. The dynamic was clear in the recent “Reverse Tariffs” campaign, for example, which offered a 25% discount in response to proposed US tariffs and built on the brand’s successful “Everyone Deserves Pizza” platform. Blending timely humour with real value during a period of economic uncertainty, the campaign launched the same day as the Canada-USA hockey game in the Four Nations Face-Off – a rapid turnaround that boosted its cultural relevance and ampli ed its impact. The impact was immediate: Sales jumped 20% that weekend, prompting a campaign extension.
On the other end of the spectrum, the agency recently delivered a masterbrand platform for President’s Choice – uniting all of PC’s consumer-facing business units under one strategy for the rst time. The platform underlines how PC helps Canadians navigate daily life with greater ease and value, built in response to research that showed that Canadians are often overwhelmed by daily stressors and mundane tasks. What started as a complex business challenge uniting muliple business units turned into “Possible Lives Here,” a creative and design system that spans food, delivery, loyalty, nance and health. With TV, digital and in-store components, it reinforces the brand’s role in making everyday moments more rewarding. The campaign has exceeded all projections, resulting in increased awareness, engagement, and a positive brand impact, as well as bringing new customers into the PC ecosystem.
Sutton says the work re ects what Z.A.K. is built for, spanning everything from fast, culturally relevant ideas to enduring brand platforms, all driven by creativity and made to move the needle.
“More than anything, they prove that bold, businessmoving creativity still wins,” he says. “That originality matters. And that ghting sameness is as important as ever.”
Above: Booking.com brought star power and playfulness to the Super Bowl with Miss Piggy, showcasing Z.A.K.’s ability to create high-impact campaigns with global reach.
Clockwise: 1 Launched during the Canada-USA hockey game, the Reverse Tariffs campaign used timely humour and a 25% discount to deliver a 20% sales boost. 2 With its “Man, That Feels Good” campaign for Harry's, Z.A.K. used playful honesty to challenge tired grooming clichés and celebrate what real men actually care about. 3 Z.A.K. developed a unified brand platform for President’s Choice, turning a complex business challenge into a seamless, multi-channel campaign that boosted awareness, engagement and customer growth. 4 To cut through the noise of screen addiction for ParticipAction, Z.A.K. dramatized the message with time-wasting devices crashing off a cliff – urging Canadian to move more and sit less. 5 Z.A.K.’s Subaru campaign focused on authenticity and emotional connection, positioning the brand as a trusted companion in life’s unpredictable journeys – with creative that felt both human and bold. 6 For Destination BC, Z.A.K. uncovered deep, international insights identifying German car washes as great, unexpected forums for captive audiences. CONTACT:
Christine McNab Chief operating officer
An era where anything’s possible Mosaic wants to change the way people experience brands
Above: CCM transformed homes into Hockey Houses across major markets with uber cool features like neon-lit basement locker rooms to engage next gen fans. Right: 1 Mosaic’s Gen Z activations for Samsung fused tech with culture through music, fashion and sport-led experiences across Canada. 2 In Mosaic’s Galaxy Builders program, kids used Samsung Galaxy devices to code their own planets in an immersive, STEM-focused universe. 3 A student explores her digital creation in Galaxy Builders, Mosaic’s VR- and NFC-powered coding platform that expanded to 200 schools. 4 For Intel Encore, Mosaic created AI-powered art installations to showcase the creative and ever-evolving potential of technology.
OONCE KNOWN PRIMARILY AS AN EXPERIENTIAL agency, Mosaic has grown into an integrated shop with a renewed sense of purpose - change the way people experience brands.
Anchored by the tagline “Made to Experience,” its goal is to rede ne what experience can mean. “Experience is such a broad, untapped canvas” says Jef Moore, executive creative director. “A billboard is a rectangle and eight words, we have all of experience to play with.”
Mosaic is focusing on three core pillars – experiential, commerce and eld marketing – while embracing a more personal, relationship-driven approach. In essence, Mosaic has set out to evolve the way people interact with brands, and become what they call an “experience agency.”
“We’ve really put humans at the centre of the work that we do.” explains Nick Pilon, group creative director, design. “That allows us to create work that connects with people on an emotional level.”
Mosaic may have the scale of a North American agency, but it operates like a boutique. Its approach is grounded in empathy, collaboration and a belief that technology should serve people, not the other way around. This, in turn, drives a focus on building
meaningful connections that speak to the end consumer’s core needs and desires.
That philosophy is rooted in the makeup of Mosaic’s team. As creative director Daniel Berzen explains, part of the agency’s strength lies in the wide range of backgrounds its people bring to their jobs, from music producers and designers to entrepreneurs and digital innovators. This mix fuels creativity, empathy and curiosity and shapes how the agency interprets briefs.
“When I rst came back to Mosaic a couple of years ago, I wrote on the whiteboard in our of ce: ‘We can do anything,’” Berzen explains. “I'd hope that people look at the quality of work and what’s delivered and can see that ethos.”
The agency’s “Hockey House” execution for CCM is the perfect showcase of its capabilities. The goal was to build buzz around the sport for its youngest fans. Instead of following the usual stoic tone found in much of hockey marketing, the agency wanted to ip hockey culture on its helmet, create the feeling of joy around every corner and tap into the burgeoning in uential hockey creator community.
Part MTV Cribs, part Tik Tok Hype House, CCM Hockey House took over homes in major markets and transformed them into a hockey playground with basements transformed into neon-lit locker rooms and barbershops that only had hockey hair on the menu. The project started in Toronto and has since expanded to Boston, Montreal and Sweden, and has been successfully running for three years.
Samsung’s Galaxy Builders is another standout. Rather than just marketing devices, Samsung aimed to give consumers real value and inspire kids by putting the galaxy in the palm of their hands. Working with educational institutions, Mosaic built an app and platform where kids could learn coding by creating digital planets
and stars using VR, 3D design, and NFC technology. In two years, the program grew from 20 to 200 schools and quadrupled key metrics, including the creation of 15,000 virtual planets. Kids had fun, gained skills and parents were thrilled to see Galaxy Builders turn screen time into a STEM learning experience.
Berzen emphasizes that the goal is always to create lasting value, not just short-term campaigns – something Caralia Gosling, the agency’s VP of client growth, says is part of Mosaic’s DNA. “We don’t look for transactional relationships with our clients,” she explains. “We’re more than a supplier or a vendor. As an agency, we’re truly your partner, and when we win, we win best by having long-term relationships and being able to evolve programs year-over-year.”
Berzen also highlights the Intel Encore exhibit as a prime example of Mosaic’s experiential marketing capabilities. To showcase AI’s creative potential, the team built an art gallery powered entirely by Intel laptops, but curated by the guests interacting with the installations in the space. Featuring nine wellknown digital artists from Canada and the US – all of whom were working with AI for the rst time, these interactive, ever-changing artworks invited visitors of all ages to engage. Installations featured AI-generated music, facial-recognition art and a photo booth that created “memories” that never happened IRL. The experience softened the stigma of AI in unexpected ways, blending human creativity with technology, and reached millions online as a best-in-class demonstration of AI-powered innovation.
“Those are exactly the sort of powerful relationships we can cultivate,” says Pilon. “It’s about creating a genuine relationship with the brand – and creating something culturally valuable in the space we’re trying to affect.”
Rewriting narratives in service of the work
Agnostic approaches strategy with insight and emotional clarity
BBEFORE WHAT BECAME AGNOSTIC, THE TORONTObased independent PR and communications agency, Sarah Crabbe began with a simple mission. “I spent a lot of time talking to CMOs,” she recalls. “Asking what they felt was missing, what they actually needed – not just what agencies were selling them.”
Based on those answers, she built a rm not on buzzwords or promises, but on what Crabbe calls “better thinking.” And in an overcrowded marketing landscape that often measures everything but true impact, Agnostic has managed to stand out precisely because it slows down to ask: what are we solving for?
In six years, the agency has grown with intention. Today, it boasts four thriving practice areas – healthcare, CPG, food and beverage and corporate/tech – and a reputation for making things happen. Agnostic’s philosophy is simple but resolute: solve problems, don’t sell services. True to its name, the rm meets clients where they are. “We don’t push a one-size- ts-all solution,” Crabbe explains. “We look at the business problem rst and then decide what channel makes sense.”
This ethos is part of what she calls being “in service to the work.” It’s a principle shaped in part by hiring journalists such as former Toronto Star editor, Amit Shilton.
This lens has shaped campaigns like Coinbase’s Canadian launch, for which the team reimagined how to build trust in a post-FTX crypto landscape. Public trust was at an all-time low, and many viewed digital currencies as a gamble. By pairing Coinbase with Interac – a widely trusted
Left: Agnostic led the PR launch of the Terry Fox Research Institute's Finish It campaign revealing the Foundation's new brand platform and marking 45 years since the Marathon of Hope.
Canadian payment platform – they shifted the narrative from “crypto” to “ nance.” They also created high-impact public forums, bringing Coinbase leaders face-to-face with the Canadian Securities Regulator and Shopify’s CEO to discuss responsible innovation. The result was not just coverage, but credibility. Another standout campaign helped Food Basics celebrate Diwali. “The Southeast Asian community is an important one for Food Basics,” Crabbe says. “We learned that a local bylaw had banned reworks in Ottawa, limiting community celebrations.” So instead of a splashy tokenizing gesture, Agnostic organized a community-centered drone light show that honored the spirit of the holiday while complying with the law. “That’s the difference between participating in culture and parachuting in,” Crabbe says. “We’re guests in those communities. That means listening rst, acting second.”
The throughline in every campaign is a willingness to dig deeper – into audience insight, emotional truth and the real-world dynamics shaping perception. This approach led to Agnostic's B2P Emotion Equation research launched earlier this year. A true look behind the role of emotion in B2B marketing and how logic and data need a human approach to drive results. This strategy is working. In 2024 alone, Agnostic acquired eight new clients and generated more than three billion impressions across its portfolio.
Crabbe’s belief in storytelling can be seen in Agnostic’s internal culture. One of its most beloved internal initiatives, Think Week, is a company-wide pause from deliverables to make space for curiosity. Staff might spend the day at a local museum or a downtown food market, for example. It’s not about leisure time, it’s about perspective. “In this industry, thinking has become a luxury,” Crabbe says. “But how can we deliver better ideas if we’re never looking up from our screens?”
The same philosophy inspired the launch of Agnostic Exchange, the agency’s experiential arm. “We saw an opportunity to bridge PR, advertising and experiential, which often operate in silos,” says Crabbe. “Whether you’re reading a Globe and Mail article, watching a drone show from a city street or seeing an ad on the subway, it should all feel cohesive. It should all come from the same insight.” At its best, Crabbe believes, experiential marketing shouldn’t feel like a tactic. It should feel like connection.
“Agnostic was born from asking: what if we did this differently? And we’ll keep asking that, again and again.”
That kind of thinking, insists the agency president, isn’t optional for them. It’s the point.
Below: 1,3 & 4 After a regional ban on personal fireworks threatened to damper Diwali celebrations in Ottawa, Agnostic led a partnership with Food Basics and the capital city’s Diwali Mela to bring light to the community through an innovative drone show. More than 500 community members gathered to celebrate, strengthening community ties for the brand and generating major media attention.
Above: 2 On World Menopause Day, Agnostic leveraged the influence of Jully Black to spark national conversation and spotlight Sinai Health Foundation’s urgent call to transform menopause care. 5 As title sponsor of the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, Celsius tapped Agnostic to boost its presence in Canada, landing top sports media coverage and major national buzz.
CONTACT: Sarah Crabbe President scrabbe@thinkagnostic.com
Where culture, creativity and tech collide
Brave work, big thinking drive Weber Shandwick Canada forward
GGREG POWER DOESN’T TALK ABOUT PR THE way most agency heads do. The Weber Shandwick Canada president and CEO talks about the importance of sociology and the impacts of the “orthodoxy” of corporate worldviews. He brings up the ywheel theory of organizational momentum, except that his engine is people, not pro t or performance metrics.
And by all measures, Weber Shandwick Canada is thriving. Revenue rose 22% last year, outpacing industry growth and making Canada one of the global network’s top-performing regions. Staff grew by 23% to 111 fulltime employees in 2024, including 34 new hires.
Power credits three practices for all the success: “We collaborate across the agency as one P&L. We prioritize growing the clients we already have. And we stay plugged into culture, always asking: what’s next, and how do we meet it with meaning?”
Behind the revenue gures and awards lies a deeper strategy – one that fuses bold creativity, cultural insight and cutting-edge technology. It’s what enables longevity in client relationships – McDonald’s Canada has been a partner for 36 years, GM, Bayer and RBC for 14 – and drives constant adaptation to shifts in media, technology and culture.
For Power, successful PR starts with understanding the public – how they show up in culture and how brands can meet them there. “Our work is ultimately about in uencing someone to think or act differently,” he says. “To do that well, we need to be deeply embedded in culture.”
That philosophy drives the agency’s focus on what
Above: To mark the retirement of Vince Carter’s jersey, with Weber Shandwick PR support Air Canada revealed a special aircraft bearing his silhouette, signature, and number – paying tribute to the man once nicknamed “Air Canada.” Below: 1 Air Canada ran a “Fly the Flag” contest encouraging fans to cheer on Lu Dort by commenting “Go Canada, Go!” under Air Canada’s social media posts on Instagram, X, Facebook and TikTok for a chance to win prizes. Right: 2 Weber Shandwick supported Ronald McDonald House Charities with PR efforts to raise awareness around the launch of RMHC Canada Family Cookbook; Recipes of hope from our families to yours to help raise funds for families suffering from food insecurity, in partnership with RBC.
Power calls “brave work.” In a climate where political polarization and brand risk can sti e innovation, Weber Shandwick takes a different stance. “We believe there’s a return on inclusion,” says Power. “A sustainable, future-facing brand is one that includes everyone – and that’s just smart business.”
A major edge comes from the agency’s investment in AI and analytics. Weber I/O, launched in 2024, builds on ve years of investment in AI and innovation, the agency has pioneered machine-readable newsrooms, predictive scenario planning and disinformation detection, ushering in a new era of narrative intelligence. “What excites me most is how these tools help us make sense of the world,” says Power. “They reveal the narratives shaping public perception, who’s driving them and how they spread. It helps brands escape the orthodoxy of their own worldview and see what else is out there.”
Weber Shandwick’s interactive AI workshops give clients immersive exposure to these tools, allowing them to see how real-time scenarios might unfold across digital networks. It’s a modern version of the agency’s crisis simulation workshops, designed to prepare brands not just for what might happen, but how to respond with agility and integrity.
To help clients navigate this complexity, Weber Shandwick’s Creative Intelligence Partners program works within integrated agency teams and directly with creative agencies, using real-time data tools and synthetic audience testing to help clients assess creative ideas before they go to market, gauging risk, identifying potential backlash and re ning messaging. “Great creative needs to be provocative,” says Power. “We want to give agencies and clients the con dence to go there – but with clarity.”
Social impact and sustainability are also central to Weber Shandwick’s evolution. In response to Canada’s aggressive anti-greenwashing legislation (Bill C-59), the agency developed a bot that scans clients’ ESG messaging through the lens of the law, agging potential issues before they become liabilities. “We want to help clients make meaningful progress while protecting their reputations. It’s not either-or, it’s both. Sustainability, inclusion, social impact – they’re not add-ons anymore,” he says. “They’re expectations.”
In today’s media environment, attention and trust are decentralized. “You have to engage with creators, in uencers, podcasts, meme accounts – whatever networks your audience lives in, says Power. This evolution has changed how Weber Shandwick crafts campaigns. Legacy partnerships still matter – especially in sectors like nance – but reaching younger, more diverse or underrepresented audiences requires an ecosystem mindset.
“There’s so much innovation happening,” he says. “And we have the tools, the people and the cultural uency to help clients lead, not just react, using an IP like the Media Network Effect and Cultural Choreography.
For Weber Shandwick Canada, the future isn’t something to fear. It’s something to engineer. And with a team driven by curiosity, conviction and care, the agency is proving that bold, culturally attuned creativity isn’t just possible in this era –it’s essential.
“We’re helping shape the future. And we get to do that with some of the smartest, most curious, most fearless people around.” Power pauses, then adds, “Human insight is the part you can’t automate.”
Left: 3 To celebrate small businesses, Weber Shandwick created a holiday storybook called Canberry & Crumm, and supporting installations which featured eight local employers in Fort Langley that have been key to building the community.
4 Weber Shandwick supported the OLG Lotto Max “Thrift Drop Collection,” building hype around the launch and pop-up activation at The Well via an integrated influencer and media campaign. Right: 5 To kick off Movember, and raise funds and awareness for men's health with comms support from Weber Shandwick, Olympian and Amazing Race Canada host Jon Montgomery shaved his moustache and sent it into orbit on a plaque carried by a highaltitude balloon.
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CONTACT: Greg Power President and CEO gpower@webershandwick.com
Creating something entirely new VML has merged to form Canadian powerhouse
WWHEN CEO ROB GUÉNETTE STOOD AT THE HELM OF A newly merged VML Canada, bringing Taxi and Wunderman Thompson together, he knew the easiest route would be the wrong one. Simply fusing old cultures from the separate rms – Taxi having made its mark with in uential creative and Wunderman building its reputation on CRM, commerce, data and tech – wasn’t going to be enough. He wanted to build something entirely new: a fresh company that could, from day one, be a serious contender on the national stage.
And in just over a year, with over 500 employees across Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver of ces, the agency has done just that through deliberate leadership choices, an ambitious vision and a culture that prioritizes creativity and connection.
“We established the leadership very quickly, so that set the tone,” Guénette says. And then he and Graham Lang, CCO, set one clear goal: “We have to come out of this, not only with a successful merger, but also to land in the top ve most creative agencies in Canada with a body of work that represents the totality of our capabilities.” Lang highlights that VML Canada ranked fourth in the Strategy 2025 Creative Report Card.
The agency now consistently tops creative industry benchmarks. But behind those wins lies a deliberate philosophy that Guénette and his team installed from the very start: a culture of creativity, connection and integration.
At the heart of VML Canada’s approach is the philosophy of creating “Connected Brands” – brands that meet customers with the right mix of humanity, persuasion and commerce at every stage of their journey. VML’s integrated structure ows across three pillars, with Brand Experience, Customer Experience and Commerce under one roof. The company sees itself as a band of doers, innovators and believers in humanity. And for Guénette, those words are more than branding – they are the spirit behind every piece of work, whether it’s a simple in-store shelf talker or a national television spot, the commitment to high creativity remains the same.
VML's geographic reach is key to their success in a multicultural country like Canada. Québec isn’t an afterthought, for example, it’s built into every national campaign from the start. In fact, some national accounts are run entirely out of Montréal or Vancouver, re ecting the agency’s inclusive model.
Left: The awardwinning “Magic Duos,” out of home campaign reminded people that the combination of their favourite food and an ice-cold Coca-Cola is magic.
This approach has paid off, with standout campaigns like Volkswagen’s “Sans Émissions” emerging from the Montréal of ce, which won a Grand Clio for Media. A simple but powerful double entendre, the campaign transformed Québec’s TV “offair” screens into a metaphor for Volkswagen’s zero-emission vehicles, earning top global recognition and helping the automaker’s electri cation efforts resonate in a culturally authentic way. Other major accounts like Coca-Cola, Mazda, Fido, OLG, Vancity, Colgate and Kruger have also bene ted from VML’s distinctly Canadian storytelling. Guénette also explains that VML Canada negotiated signi cant local autonomy despite being part of the world’s largest agency network, with over 30,000 employees globally.
Technological innovation is also playing a part in the agency’s future. Through VML’s access to WPP Open, a proprietary AI-powered platform, the team can accelerate research and production without sacri cing creative quality. Though AI isn’t a replacement for human insight, Guénette sees it as a powerful enabler.
Looking ahead, VML Canada’s focus is on smart, sustainable growth. With a challenging economic landscape and uncertain global tensions, the agency is doubling down on deepening relationships with existing clients, strengthening their customer experience and commerce capabilities and applying their full creative force across every touchpoint.
Ultimately, Guénette believes the balance between deep national pride and global connectedness is what sets VML Canada apart. That’s why VML Canada’s mantra is “Fiercely local. Proudly global.”
Above: 1 OLG Ontario Racing Un ltered, a gripping docuseries, brought the raw, behindthe-scenes world of horse racing to life, helping a new audience fall in love with the sport. 4 VML helped Coca-Cola Fuze make its Canadian debut with a bold launch campaign and introduced a fresh new brand with a familiar flavour to audiences across the country.
Below: 2 “Pride Unravelled,” transformed data into a powerful visual statement and turned complex truths into an unforgettable celebration of identity and impact. 3 Improv star Pier-Luc Funk electrified the screen in San Émission, the award-winning comedy special that transformed a TV station’s dead airtime into a four-hour overnight hit powered by the all-electric Volkswagen.
CONTACT: Matt Shoom-Kirsch Chief operating officer
Humanity in the age of algorithms
Dentsu Canada transforms how brands connect with consumers
Above: Dentsu Canada’s AI-enabled Following Wildfire platform for Tentree detected early warning signs of potential wildfires by crowdsourcing social media. The algorithm prevented 211 potential fires.
IIN A MARKETING WORLD SHAPED BY DATA, DENTSU
Canada is proving that technology alone isn’t enough – it’s the human touch behind the algorithm that makes transformation possible. Guided by its 150-year-old philosophy of creating value for clients, society and employees alike, the agency is helping brands navigate the Algorithmic Era with AI-driven strategies and clientcentric creativity that spark real transformation.
“AI is ushering in a new era of marketing in which brands are going to have to transform the way they connect to consumers,” says Stephen Kiely, CEO, Dentsu Canada. “We’ve made moves that position us to help brands navigate that world.”
By 2027, algorithmically enabled ad spending is estimated to reach 79% of total ad spend, he says. So, to capture that spend, Dentsu is tapping its strengths in audience-building strategies, insights, data and analytics and turning AI into a competitive advantage for brands.
It did so for sustainable clothing brand Tentree, which has had reforestation at the heart of its strategy since 2015, when it started planting trees in wild re-affected areas of Canada.
Right: 1 & 2 For the launch of Subway’s Globally Inspired menu, Dentsu created “Chef John” and featured him on a worldwide quest to find bold new flavours. Intent to visit Subway, especially among non-visitors, grew significantly.
When Tentree turned to Dentsu to nd a way to prevent the next re, the agency created an AI-enabled platform called Following Wild re that crowdsourced photos on social media to detect early warning signs of potential wild res.
As most wild res start in recreational areas and not deep in the woods, the algorithm had to be trained to understand “the difference between a marshmallow cookout and a potential re,” Kiely says. It scanned 24,233 photos and detected 211 potential res, protecting more than 10,200 acres of forest. Beyond being good for nature, the effort led to an 85% increase in organic search volume for Tentree, 68 million earned media impressions and a 62% rise in awareness of Tentree as a sustainable brand.
For Pandora, Dentsu combined AI, automated analytics and its proprietary audience analytics tool CCS to grow the jewelry retailer’s pro le in the South Asian community, starting with a test location.
To drive more foot traf c and sales, Dentsu’s media creative and Pandora’s go to market teams built a unique campaign around Raksha Bandhan, the holiday celebrates the bond between sisters and brothers. Dentsu created a 360-degree campaign that included in-store activations and used in uencers to drive awareness and social media. The Pandora store saw a 27% increase in same store sales and a 19% boost in basket size during the campaign period.
When Subway launched its Globally Inspired menu, Dentsu applied its new “One Dentsu” organizational model in Canada – a holistic approach that uni es research, insights, audience planning and technology to power integrated media, creative and social work.
Dentsu created a ctionalized “Chef John” and sent him on a globe-trotting quest to nd bold new avours (based on the real-life adventures of Subway chef John Botelho). The campaign resonated
Above & Right: 3 & 4 To grow Pandora’s profile in the South Asian community, Dentsu built a unique campaign around Raksha Bandhan, a Hindu festival that celebrates the bond between sisters and brothers. A 360-degree campaign for the jewelery retailer’s Brampton store led to a 27% increase in same store sales. 5 Dentsu Canada believes its work should be underpinned with a strong connection to doing good for society. About 4,000 hours annually of employee time is committed to outside causes.
with both loyal and new customers and strengthened brand cues. Social followers increased 24% and there was 80% brand recognition among those who recalled the ad, exceeding the 60% norm. Intent to visit Subway, especially among non-visitors, grew signi cantly.
Kiely says the Japanese-based agency’s 150-year-old philosophy of sanpo-yoshi – the idea that business should bene t the company, clients and society – permeates Dentsu Canada’s culture. For clients, it means Dentsu focuses on doing its best work and creating meaningful value. Not surprisingly, it’s an approach that has earned Dentsu supplier of the year honours from several clients, including Kraft and GM.
Sanpo-yoshi also shows in Dentsu Canada being named one of the GTA’s top employers (2025) for the second year running, thanks to initiatives like offering its nearly 1,100 employees two paid volunteer days each year.
That spirit of meaningful renewal extends to the top. Kiely, who recently returned to CEO, says the agency has become invigorated with several high-pro le leadership hires, including Christine Saunders as CEO of the media practice and Ari Elkouby as chief creative of cer.
Kiely says each of these new leaders bring fresh energy and expertise to the agency. “Client centricity is at the heart of each of their DNAs,” he says.
CONTACT: Kate Dobrucki Kate.dobrucki@dentsu.com Chief communications officer
Sparking long-term devotion
Lifelong Crush stresses brand building in changing environment
IT’S NO WONDER THAT AN AGENCY CALLED
Lifelong Crush aims to spark long-term brand devotion. That stands in “sharp contrast to much of what’s happening in the market,” says Lifelong Crush (LLC) EVP and managing director Caroline Kilgour. A lot of the work she sees “feels like a one-off,” she says, “with less of a strategically coherent long-term brand building effort – which is what this team is very bullish about.” LLC holds a long-term, results-oriented view about their work “regardless of whether they’re working as an AOR or on a project basis,” Kilgour says. The agency also distinguishes itself with a creative ethos built on Unconstrained Ideas: “These are ideas that are unshackled from traditional media plans, defy category norms and are designed to subvert monocultural trends,” explains SVP of strategy, Geoff Gingerich.
That’s what Lifelong Crush did for Cashmere UltraLuxe bathroom tissue by stepping into restaurant bathrooms to reinvent a category norm. While food has been the primary focus in setting the standard for restaurant excellence, LLC and their clients, Kruger Products Inc., saw an opportunity to set a new standard for the overlooked yet most visited (and
judged) room – the bathroom. Recognizing not all bathrooms are created equally, as the authority on bathroom luxury, they launched the Cashmere UltraLuxe Bathroom Guide - the rst-ever ranking of Canada’s top restaurant bathrooms. LLC developed a one-to-three “Fleur,” rating system, based on the unique embossed pattern on the bathroom tissue. The campaign generated signi cant earned impressions, a boost in sales volume and increased engagement in website visits and product mentions.
For Kicking Horse Coffee, a BC-based coffee brand with a loyal following but one which had never done any traditional advertising, the agency conceived of a campaign featuring a wild-eyed donkey that eschewed the category’s traditional celebrities or sip and smile tropes.
The mandate was to bring the feeling of Kicking Horse Coffee to life and not get mired in the category tropes of their big coffee competitors. Aimed at kickstarting a sleepy category, the campaign garnered more than 365 million impressions and led to a signi cant increase in Kicking Horse direct to consumer sales. In fact, kilograms sold increased while those for the competition fell. “They had one of the best performing years ever, in direct-to-consumer as well as growing share, in a year where the whole category declined amid price increases. They are now one of the fastest growing premium coffee brands in Canada,” Gingerich adds.
Kilgour says LLC has a host of creative, “multi-hyphenate talents,” with big toolboxes and wide production capabilities. “They’re thinking from an initial ideation standpoint right through to the creative execution and the production phase of a project. The dreamers and the do’ers are one in the same at LLC," she explains.
Those capabilities came to the fore with the expansive new “100%” campaign for Destination Toronto that had its soft launch in January. The effort aims to embrace stakeholders ranging from the business community to tourists with a rallying cry that Torontonians are 100% all-in on accepting new ideas and people’s ambitions, big and small.
Many traditional agencies with much more siloed departments would have brought in a third-party production partner, driving costs up for the four-day shoot. But in this case, CCO Christina Yu developed the creative and spearheaded production as the Director.
“Our north star for production has always been craft, but we have challenged ourselves to conceive of the people, processes and tools required to make the production process as time and cost-ef cient as possible,” Kilgour says. “Our production- rst mindset re ects today’s world order, namely marketing teams who are being asked to do more with less. Unencumbered by legacy structures, we have been able to build an agency team that re ects what marketers are looking for from an agency partnership.”
For Lifelong Crush, staying bold, nimble and unconstrained isn’t just an ethos – it’s the foundation of how the agency helps their clients’ brands break through in the attention economy and spark long-term brand devotion with their audience.
Above: Kicking Horse Coffee’s wild-eyed donkey kickstarted the sleepy coffee category in the BC coffee brand’s first-ever advertising campaign.
Left: 1 For OK Tire the agency used humour to emphasize that the brands full range of speciality services goes well beyond Tires. Using the tagline, “If it has wheels, it’s gonna be OK” the hero spot playfully demonstrates its expertise with vehicles of all sizes. Below: 2 Lifelong Crush created the Cashmere UltraLuxe Bathroom Guide for Cashmere UltraLuxe bathroom tissue. Expert judges from the design and restaurant worlds selected Toronto’s most luxurious restaurant bathrooms. 3 For Scarborough Health Network Foundation, Lifelong Crush developed an integrated campaign including a TV spot, OOH, print, radio and social highlighting the communities’ grit, tenacity and passion to highlight the greatness that can be achieved with donor support.
Above: 4 The Kick Start Your Heart campaign for Kicking Horse Coffee led to a dramatic increase in the brand’s direct to consumer sales. Right: 5 Working with The Peace Collective, Lifelong developed the ‘Elbow’s Up’ collection, was supported by three online videos.
CONTACT: Caroline Kilgour EVP, managing director
Leading with emotion
C&B Advertising puts authenticity and heart ahead of trendiness
Left: C&B tapped into Hollywood magic for Travel Alberta, stitching together iconic scenes filmed in Alberta to position the province as the ultimate setjetting destination.
AAT A TIME WHEN MANY AGENCIES ARE chasing quick wins and trend-driven content, Calgary’s C&B Advertising is taking a different path, rooted in emotional clarity and a long-term view. For this 14-year-old indie, the best work comes out of strategic alignment, deep research and a belief that creativity can be a powerful business tool. It’s an approach that not only drives standout work but draws in clients looking for more than surface-level solutions.
“Branding is a process, not an event,” states C&B MD and partner Leigh Blakely. “One of our main differentiators is how we approach things, strategically and from a thoughtful place to create that emotive work.”
Rather than following the crowd, C&B works to express timely ideas in ways that feel authentic and aligned – helping clients stand out with a clear, consistent point of view. “We've stayed committed to nding the core emotional truth of every brand, focusing on it fully and using it to drive the brand forward,” explains head of strategy Shayne McBride. “Brands often want to go to a safe place.
Above: 1 C&B’s work for Evander Kane’s Dovetail label pairs hockey’s precision with elevated, luxury design.
Our job is to say: ‘Let's nd a way that really resonates with people emotionally and is at the core of what this brand is about.’”
By staying true to each brand’s core and focusing on fundamentals, C&B’s work establishes a clear look, feel and focus. “We tend to get work that delivers more and that can be in the market longer, that has more opportunity to be used multiple times,” says McBride. “It's nding the real core truth and we spend a lot of time looking for that right piece.”
Across a client roster that includes Travel Alberta, Calgary Stampede, Calgary Co-op, Indigenous Tourism Alberta, West Edmonton Mall and Tourism Richmond, the agency’s work combines emotional storytelling and strategic alignment with a distinctly Western Canadian lens.
And it’s always ready for new opportunities. Case in point: last January, it took on Alberta’s rst craft distillery, Eau Claire Distillery, and is now preparing to launch the brand across Canada and into the US.
The agency’s expertise is perhaps best showcased in its work for long-time client Travel Alberta. With uncertainty around US travel to Canada predominant, its focus has been on boosting visitation in the winter months. So the team began by exploring what truly resonates with travellers – uncovering insights and points of interest that could lead to a compelling emotional story.
The award-winning “Sky Painter” campaign that resulted is a clear example of strategy and creativity working in sync. The team identi ed the Northern Lights as the standout draw, then crafted an emotional narrative that positioned Alberta’s winter as a must-see experience. The result: global recognition and, more importantly, real visitors during a traditionally quiet season – proof of what happens
when you uncover the core truth that makes a message stick.
Another of the agency’s most recent campaigns – a suicide awareness initiative for Counseling Alberta that’s focused on farmers – re ects C&B’s understanding of local communities. Built on years of work with partners in rural Canada, the team approached the sensitive topic with honesty, empathy and respect. Informed by rising demand for mental health support, the campaign avoided clichés and aimed to re ect the real pressures faced by farmers. For the agency, it was a powerful reminder that, at its best, marketing doesn’t just connect, it can truly make a difference.
With its distinctive mindset and deep connection to local audiences, the agency offers a perspective that’s often overlooked by brands who sometimes default to agencies in Toronto or Vancouver. Because it’s not just about where they’re based – it’s about how they think. For Blakely, that deep understanding is what makes real audience connection possible.
“We're very proud of the work that we do,” she adds. “We’re really lucky with the clients we currently have, and want to work with more clients with that similar mindset.”
Left: 2 C&B helps Travel Alberta tell emotionally resonant stories that showcase the province’s natural beauty and spirit. 3 & 4 The award-winning “Sky Painter” campaign brought Alberta’s Northern Lights to life with cinematic storytelling and strategic heart.
Above: 5-7 C&B’s farmer-focused suicide awareness campaign for Counseling Alberta used honest, empathetic storytelling to address mental health in rural Alberta.
An intelligent transformation PHD Canada moves from media to momentum
PPHD CANADA IS EMBRACING A NEW ERA – ONE reshaped by leadership, rede ned by strategy and refocused on intelligent growth. Under the global PHD banner –“Intelligence. Connected.” – the Omnicom agency is shifting from a traditional media shop to a full orchestration partner, helping clients navigate complexity by connecting data, talent and technology.
President Erica Kokiw, who joined the agency in fall 2024, is the one leading that transformation. “My mandate has been to turn the business around and build our position as a strategic partner, retaining great clients and attracting new ones who push us to be better.” That renewed focus has quickly borne fruit, with PHD winning Tim Hortons’ media business within her rst three months.
Central to the agency’s offering is access to Omnicom’s Omni platform – an end-to-end marketing orchestration system that powers smarter planning and faster activation. Within Omni, tools like Audience Explorer, Investment and Channel Planner, and Q-Cultural Intelligence enable teams to create, optimize and scale campaigns across every channel with always-on data.
“Omni incorporates a wide range of data sets and AI agents, so our teams can access insights and drive outcomes at speed,” says Kokiw. “It’s evolving constantly, and it’s built to give our strategists and planners a creative edge.”
To accelerate the shift, PHD Canada recently hired Cory Peters as its chief media of cer. His role is to ensure the agency’s strategy, planning and activation are fully aligned with its ‘Intelligence. Connected.’ positioning. Peters is working
Left: For Tangerine, PHD Canada illustrated its no fee guarantee by reimbursing clients who booked flights using their chequing account the money back for a new baggage claim charge. Clients redeemed all 7,500 rebates in the first two weeks of the campaign.
to deliver an unprecedented client experience alongside a leadership group that also includes Matt Devlin, managing director of marketing science, Angie Genovese, managing director, client business partner and Christina Laczka, managing director, transformation.
That focused combination of creativity, data and smart orchestration is already showing up in PHD Canada’s work. When Belairdirect wanted to engage Gen Z with a rental insurance campaign, for example, PHD Canada created the “Mystery Fridge” stunt: a fridge crashing through a car roof on Montreal’s busy July 1 moving day. The staged scene, left unbranded, sparked viral interest and speculation, with many assuming it was a real accident. The activation helped deliver a 9% month-over-month increase in brand consideration, and a YOY 20% jump in quotes and 16% sales growth in Quebec. In another example of responsive marketing, PHD Canada worked with Tangerine Bank and Rethink to turn a timely pain point into an opportunity. To help their clients with the rise of new and unexpected fees, Tangerine offered to help pay for baggage “checking fees” on any airline by providing a $40 rebate. The campaign helped 7,500 clients keep more money in their pockets, and it also helped the brand earn its highest-ever organic video views, with over one million plays. Paid media ampli ed the effort, reaching more than three million Canadians.
For Grupo Bimbo’s Bon Matin bread brand, the agency leaned into local cultural relevance around the different ways people greet each other in the morning. The campaign posed a playful question: Do you say “Bon Matin” or “Bonjour? The question sparked conversation across radio and social channels, particularly among younger Quebecers. The result was a 134% increase in website traf c from under-35s and a 47.5% jump in engagement across platforms.
According to VP of strategy Emma Matthews, PHD Canada’s approach re ects the new media reality. “No matter how big you are, the changing landscape means every brand needs to think like a challenger,” she says. That mindset in uences how the agency views performance, innovation and creativity across campaigns.
For Kokiw, this challenger thinking is tied directly to the agency’s evolving identity. “When we think about ‘Intelligence. Connected.’ one of the principles is to outthink and outpace the competition so our clients can outgrow theirs,” she says. “We live by those principles every day.”
With leadership in place, platforms at their ngertips and campaign proof in hand, PHD Canada is rede ning what a media agency can be – an orchestration partner for brands ready to grow smarter and faster in a fragmented world.
Below: 1 & 3 To get Gen Z talking about rental insurance in Montreal for Belairdirect, PHD Canada launched a ‘mystery fridge’ stunt on Quebec moving day that became the most talked-about campaign in the brand’s history.
Above: 2, 4 & 5 When Grupo Bimbo’s Bon Matin bread faced a decline in revenue and brand consideration in Quebec, PHD Canada sparked a province-wide debate around how Quebecers greet each other in the morning. The campaign led to a deeper connection with a declining audience segment of younger Gen Z and Millennials.
CONTACT: Erica Kokiw President erica.kokiw@phdmedia.com
Doubling down on beating boring
The Hive is on a mission to make brands
unforgettable
Above: To get people thinking of Astro’s yogurt outside of breakfast, The Hive reframed it as cooling sauce, an antidote to the many mouths scorched by hot wings on Super Bowl Sunday. Below: 1 As a challenger brand that is outspent 10:1 in the market, The Hive got creative for EQ Bank by dramatizing what other banks take vs how EQ helps Canadians get ahead. Results included a 32% increase in sign ups.
TTO THRIVE IN TODAY’S SATURATED MEDIA landscape, a brand can’t afford to be boring. That’s the mantra – and business strategy – at The Hive, a Torontobased independent agency with a bold focus on building interesting brands that generate outsized returns.
“We exist to beat boring by building interesting brands,” says Josie Daga, The Hive’s recently appointed president and CEO. “We’re for brands that believe in that mindset. We’re here to help them stand out and connect meaningfully with people.”
Daga, who joined the 30-year-old agency in January, brings fresh leadership and a strong sense of focus to the 35- person Toronto based shop. She says the agency’s appeal lies in its agility, depth of senior talent and creative ambition – qualities that allow The Hive to punch above its weight and go head-to-head with larger network competitors. “We’re small, senior and strategic. That’s our edge,” she says.
Daga is joined by chief strategy of cer Dino Demopoulos, who recently came on board after collaborating with the agency and being impressed by its culture and capabilities. “It was clear there was a collaborative spirit here, backed by a 30-year pedigree and a strong independent ethos,” he says.
And the work proves the point. Take EQ Bank, a challenger brand in a category dominated by institutions that outspend it roughly ten to one. To help EQ stand out, The Hive developed a campaign anchoring EQ’s value in something more interesting than typical category
messaging: the truth that banks are built to take, while EQ is built to help Canadians get ahead. The message came to life through a 360 integrated campaign in English and French Canada.
“We weren’t just listing features – we were dramatizing what consumers feel when a bank actually gives something back,” Daga says.
For Ontario Lottery and Gaming’s sports betting brand Proline, The Hive zigged while competitors zagged. In a newly deregulated market ooded with global players like BetMGM and FanDuel.
The Hive repositioned Proline as a catalyst for exciting social connections – rather than just a set of betting features. The result? A 135% spike in sign-ups and a 47% lift in positive brand perception.
“In a market obsessed with app features, we focused on what betting enables socially – shared excitement, friendly rivalries, moments that matter,” Daga explains.
Another campaign took a sharp creative turn with Astro yogurt.
Instead of targeting the usual breakfast crowd, The Hive used the unexpected context of Super Bowl weekend to introduce Astro as a cooling sauce for chicken wings – a clever way to tap into one of the year’s biggest eating moments. The idea generated millions of impressions on a modest budget.
“We reintroduced yogurt as a dinner pairing at a time when people weren’t thinking about it that way,” says Daga. “It’s about nding an authentic, interesting angle – and delivering impact without massive spend.”
When Canadians were lacking national pride leading into the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, The Hive crafted the “Brave is Unbeatable” campaign. Partnering with the CBC/Radio-Canada, the campaign uncovered typically unseen stories of adversity faced by Canadian athletes and how they overcame them. These
interesting human stories were spotlighted to inspire Canadians facing adversity in their everyday lives, and also boost support for the Olympians.
“We pivoted from traditional ag-waving approaches to instead portray the personal challenges that are lived and overcome by athletes,” says Daga. “The campaign was designed to inspire Canadians who were feeling adversely affected."
Daga points to stats from The Extraordinary Cost of Dull by System1 and Peter Field that show interesting ads grow share over six times faster than boring ones. It’s this philosophy –backed by data and delivered with creativity – that underpins The Hive’s mission. “In this moment of media fragmentation and AIgenerated content, brands that leverage the power of interesting will win,” she says.
With sharp leadership, cultural awareness and a commitment to doing the unexpected, The Hive is proving that in its third decade, the agency has no interest in playing it safe. After all, as Daga says, in a world full of noise, boredom is the biggest risk.
CONTACT: Josie Daga CEO jdaga@thehiveinc.com
Left: 2 & 3 When Canadian pride was low leading into the 2024 Olympics, The Hive debuted a campaign promoting Canadian athletes for the Canadian Olympic Committee to inspire regular Canadians who felt the odds were against them. 4 & 5 (Right) To stand out in a newly deregulated sports betting market, The Hive positioned Proline as the catalyst for exciting social connections and experiences
Flexing Canadian media muscle Touché! is fusing insight, innovation and local expertise
TTOUCHÉ! HAS CARVED OUT A DISTINCT SPACE IN Canadian media by blending data-driven creativity with deep cultural awareness. With strong roots in both English and French markets, the agency consistently pushes the boundaries of traditional media strategy -- proving that smart media is about knowing culture at a micro level to resonate meaningfully with consumers. The agency, led by CEO Samantha Kelley, emphasizes the power of local media, strategic collaboration and non-traditional thinking. "You can't just show up anymore," says Kelley, "You have to create experiences that resonate to drive true business results."
With robust teams in both Montréal and Toronto, Touché! stands out as the only Omnicom Media Group agency operating exclusively in Canada – something Kelley believes drives its uniquely Canadian approach. “We’ve been educating our clients for years on the value Canadian media brings.”
Touché! recently added a new executive role to its leadership team as part of its ongoing evolution: Chief client of cer. Raphaël Metter Rothan joined the agency to help structure and accelerate internal transformation and strategic business growth for clients. Jenna Bendavid was also hired as VP, business lead for key accounts in Toronto. Kelley says the new client roles re ect Touché!'s commitment to adapting its model for the future and ensuring its clients bene t from more brilliant, faster and more forward-thinking media solutions.
At the core of the agency’s success is Omni, Omnicom’s proprietary, AI-enabled marketing orchestration platform.
Powered by Canadian data, Omni connects audience insights, identity graphs and inventory planning tools. “It’s not just about speed,” says Kelley. “It’s about creative precision at scale. Omni helps us uncover meaningful trends, double-click into them and make them uniquely relevant to our clients.”
This approach to data and culture collided memorably in a recent campaign for Smirnoff, which aimed to re-engage younger Canadians during what the brand called a “joy recession.” Tapping into music as a unifying force, Touché! challenged emerging Canadian artists to create tracks using Smirnoff products as instruments, then remix each other’s work to create something new. Ampli ed across Spotify, Billboard Canada and social platforms, the campaign racked up over 35,000 Spotify streams and more than 15 million impressions. It contributed to an 8.1% sales bump – reaf rming Smirnoff’s place as Canada’s top vodka brand.
Left: Touché! created integrated placements appearing throughout Canada's Got Talent to promote Uber Eats "Get almost almost* anything" campaign in a uniquely Canadian way.
Uber Eats also tapped Touché!’s creativity to localize its global creative platform, which featured several international celebrities and the idea of forgetfulness. To bring the concept to Canada in a distinct way, Touché! partnered with Canada’s Got Talent to embrace the idea of forgetfulness – a nod to real human behaviour and memory science. The campaign turned live on-air ubs into strategic branding moments, including a judge forgetting which show he was on and a contestant leaving their shoes behind.
“We transformed the global campaign into a locally compelling live moment on the primetime stage of Canada’s Got Talent” says Kelley. The result: 15 million digital impressions, a 16x higher click-through rate and a 13% lift in brand favourability.
When Quebec’s Milk Producers Board needed to reconnect with Gen Z – a generation that has largely turned away from milk – Touché! crafted a campaign that didn’t talk about bene ts, but vibes. Titled “Milkeye,” the campaign leveraged nostalgia for the 1990s and early 2000s with lo- aesthetics, in uencer-led content and a one-night revival of Musique Plus, Quebec’s iconic music channel. An interactive photo booth, QR code-driven AR lters and social- rst creative generated over 160 million impressions and a 10.3% increase in milk sales – half a million litres.
Touché!’s overarching philosophy – pushing beyond traditional paid media into playful, innovative and unexpected channels – runs through its campaigns. Whether tapping into memory science, social media aesthetics or music as a cultural connector, the agency is nding new ways to help clients matter more.
“We always see an opportunity to bring things to market in surprising ways,” says Kelley. “Every campaign is a chance to rethink where and how we show up – and to do it with a spark that resonates for our clients and their consumers.”
Left & Below: 1, 2 & 3 Touché! connected the Quebec’s Milk Producers Board with young Quebecers in an authentic, unforced and more importantly, uncringed way. The goal was to make milk a part of their culture, not by pushing facts about milk, but by embedding it into the trends they were already shaping.
Left: 4 & 5 For Smirnoff, Touché! attempted to spark a movement meant to re-ignite social connections for Generation Z using the universal language of music by challenging emerging artists to create songs using Smirnoff bottles as instruments.
CONTACT: Samantha Kelley CEO, Touché! Canada
Samantha.kelley@touchemedia.com
Not just great for healthcare, great period
Klick Health has a way of doing the impossible
Above: For Café Joyeux, which hires and trains people with intellectual and developmental difficulties, Klick created the animated film 47. It follows the journey of a boy with Down syndrome through several rejections before he gets a job at the café. Right: 1 Klick Labs created Voice 2 Diabetes, an app that can detect Type 2 diabetes by listening to up to 10 seconds of someone’s voice.
KKLICK HEALTH SEEMS TO HAVE AN UNWRITTEN mantra: “The bigger, more dif cult and more impossible the problem, is when we do our best,” as CCO Rich Levy puts it. “We’re always doing things to hack the boundaries of health.” That may sound like a strong boast, but Klick – the world’s largest independent health marketing agency – walks the talk. Consider one case in point: Scientists at Klick Labs found an innovative way to detect Type 2 diabetes that could change the lives of people around the world – roughly half of whom don’t even know they have the disease. “Many don’t have access to medical systems and testing, so we developed something for their smartphone that can help screen for it,” Levy says. Called Voice 2 Diabetes, the app was designed to turn any smartphone into a Type 2 diabetes screening tool, using only 10 seconds of speech, basic health info and AI. By analyzing vocal changes that are imperceptible to the human ear, the tool can distinguish whether users have. Type 2 diabetes with high accuracy. Although it’s still early days, the technology has been approved for use in Canada and several other countries.
Voice 2 Diabetes won the Innovation Grand Prix last year at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, and attracted plenty of attention. As a result of the win, the agency was
approached at Cannes by Bayer, eventually winning a pitch for Aspirin.
The challenge: many older millennials and Gen X-ers who maintain healthy habits and have no family history of heart disease are ignoring potential cardiovascular risks. Enter “See Your Risks,” a campaign that highlights why they aren’t paying attention to their cardiovascular health, showing people walking around with their hands over their eyes, oblivious to the fact they could be at risk.
“Our clients loved the campaign so much they decided to run it during the Super Bowl,” Levy says. The TV spots, which landed on Time's Best Super Bowl Ads of 2025 list, end with a call to action, inviting viewers to complete a two-minute heart health risk assessment online. Website traf c jumped 91% and generated a ton of press, he adds, with almost 20 million earned media impressions. “It resonated with people, who said, ’Yeah, I am ignoring my risks.’"
Klick’s winning ways have continued. During May’s Creative Week in New York, Klick made history as the rst health agency to ever receive a One Show Agency of the Year accolade. It also won awards every night at other shows – including at the Clios, racking up more than 80 honours overall. Levy says those kinds of results are “unprecedented” for a healthcare agency at general consumer award shows and reaf rmed the mainstreaming of health.
Klick’s chief people of cer Glenn Zujew attributes much of the success to a satis ed team. Named a 2025 Best Workplace in Advertising and Marketing, Klick invests signi cantly in “Klickster” culture, through ongoing training, bringing puppies to the of ce to help relieve stress, hosting yoga classes and book clubs. Even the way they communicate with their teams is different, he says, pointing to “Klick Mosho,” company-wide meetings that look and feel a lot more like a TV talk show.
“We believe that if we keep our people happy, they will create great work,” Zujew says. “Great work means that our clients will be happy, and they will give us more work.”
When it comes to doing good while doing great work, Levy calls out the campaign Klick did for a coffee shop – a project that, at rst glance, may seem unlikely for a health agency. But Café Joyeux’s mission – to hire and train people with intellectual and developmental dif culties – proved the perfect t.
Klick helped Café Joyeux, which operates more than 25 outlets in Europe, launch its rst North American location in Manhattan with a ve-minute, animated lm called “47”. The short pays homage to a man with Down syndrome, who got his rst job at the age of 47 and became the cafe's rst crew member. It won a Silver Lion at Cannes in the Film category last year.
"We're extremely proud of the work and of our relationship with such a role model in the world," Levy says. Klick isn't alone, New York’s governor invited Cafe Joyeaux's CEO to speak to businesses about diverse hiring.
"The impact our work is having with our clients and our team is incredible. People want to be associated with companies that give back in signi cant ways. We see that as a big win," says Zujew.
CONTACT: Jennifer White Global head of growth jwhite@klick.com
Left: 2 See Your Risk, for Bayer’s Aspirin, highlighted that many people are unaware that they’re at risk for heart disease. 3 The Klick team on stage, accepting one of their 8 trophies from the Cannes Lions Festival, including the Innovation Grand Prix, Gold Lions in Entertainment and Pharma, Silver Lions in Film, Entertainment, and Digital Craft and Bronze Lions in Entertainment and Health & Wellness. Right: 4 Known for its award-winning culture, Klick hosts a wide array of "Klickster" events, including "Puppy Day" in the office, during National Stress Awardness Month.
SickKids continues to rewrite the rules
She was rushed to the hospital, but her prognosis wasn’t good. Ella could easily have died that day, but because of the care she received, this story has a happy ending. She received life-saving surgery and after a summer of intensive rehab, went back to school with her friends that September.
FTY BURKE
AS TORONTO’S HOSPITAL FOR SICK CHILDREN CELEBRATES ITS 150TH ANNIVERSARY, THE MARKETING TEAM ENVISIONS ITS NEXT FIGHT TO IMPROVE THE HEALTH OF KIDS. BY
or Ella Goldberg, the morning of July 2, 2015 began in a pretty typical way. A bus picked her up at home to take her to summer camp, where she would do activities like riding horses with her friends. But Ella’s day ended in a very unfamiliar place: under the knife in an operating room at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, also known as SickKids. Ella was thrown from a horse and it rolled on top of her, fracturing her skull in more than ten places.
“I didn’t fully understand what was happening, and I didn’t even know the extent of my own injuries,” says Ella, who is now an undergraduate psychology student at Western University. “But I knew I wanted to be a normal kid again. I just wanted to do the things normal kids would do, like swimming or jumping on a trampoline.”
Ella did do those things again. And to demonstrate her gratitude, she set up a lemonade stand in her neighbourhood with her sister. They earned $150 and took the money to the hospital in person to make a donation. And so began a fruitful collaboration between Ella Goldberg and SickKids.
Opening up a creative sandbox
Ella’s uplifting story and can-do attitude made her an ideal fit for SickKids’ now-famous “VS” platform, which debuted in 2016 as a major departure from the sentimental marketing that was typical of children’s
Clockwise from top left: At SickKids, every birthday is a battle won – and every cake a celebration of survival, says the brand in its anniversary campaign by FCB; Ella Goldberg’s fierce pose became a symbol of strength and resilience across the “VS” campaign; Precision Child Health marks a bold new chapter for the hospital, using AI and data to tailor treatments to every child; “Moms vs. Hard Days” captured 200 emotional moments in one family’s cancer journey – and the quiet strength behind them.
hospitals – or any non-profit organization, for that matter. With the help of its then-AOR Cossette, the marketing team repositioned SickKids as a centre of excellence.
“Previously, SickKids asked people to feel sorry for us, and we did that because that’s what the charity category taught us would get you donations,” says Kate Torrance, VP, head of brand, content and communications at the SickKids Foundation, the organization’s charitable arm. “But we looked inward and asked what part of our story we hadn’t told before. SickKids makes miracles happen every day. We have the best and brightest talent in the world. And we realized we should shine a spotlight on that.”
That insight unlocked an entirely new approach to its advertising – where SickKids shifted from a charity brand to a performance one – which has since been emulated by other non-profits across Canada and around the world. “Once we made the switch, our creative sandbox blew wide open,” says Torrance. “All of a sudden, we were looking at the tropes used by Nike or Under Armour.”
The “VS.” platform launched with “Undeniable.” It was the first of many memorable campaigns that Cossette produced. In it, Ella was shown as a portrait of strength – a diminutive girl in oversized scrubs. Arms crossed, biceps clenched and a fierce gleam in her eyes. She became the new face of SickKids; her image shone on the LED screens that lit up Yonge-Dundas Square, on TV screens, in subway cars, as well as the hospital atrium.
When Ella visited SickKids, she would see patients posing against the backdrop of her image, recreating it. The children in these photographs sometimes wore scrubs themselves, and mimicked her me-against-theworld stance as they navigated their own healthcare journeys. “People would reach out to my parents to tell them how much it had helped their kids in recovery to look up and see this picture every day,” she says. “That really meant a lot to me.”
A few years later, in 2021, the agency used “VS.” to introduce the public to SickKids’ bravery beads program, which invites patients to collect beads when they undergo a procedure or significant health related
experience. Using the beads, a child can make a necklace that showcases their bravery. Called “One Million Strong,” the ad showed a stream of hundreds of colourful beads floating weightlessly through otherwise sterile hospital scenes.
That same year, Cossette took a more documentarystyle approach with a Mother’s Day campaign called “Moms vs. Hard Days,” a video that took viewers along on more than 200 days of one family’s cancer treatment journey. The award-winning work showed scenes where the mother quietly cries as her son prepares for chemotherapy treatments, where he’s rushed back to hospital by ambulance, and finally, to the day when her son is able to play outside with his sister again. The video concludes with the tag, “This Mother’s Day, help a SickKids Mom stay strong.”
“Raising money is what we are here to do, but to do that, we need to drive affinity with SickKids,” says Heather Clark, the CMO at SickKids Foundation. “We need people to feel connected with the SickKids brand. Sometimes people think our advertising is easier because people already like SickKids. And it is true that people like us, but we are only one charity in a sea of many… You need to stand out.”
Selling a feeling
SickKids is primarily funded by the Government of Ontario, and it provides free medical care to pediatric patients from Ontario. The hospital also treats some patients from other provinces, and even other countries. So then why would its Foundation need to house such a highly sophisticated marketing operation?
Even though the bulk of the hospital’s funding comes from the public purse, philanthropic donations play an important role in making the hospital a world leader. Donations help fund research and provide a lot of extras for patients – activities like spaces where patients can spend time with their families and art studios where they can foster their creative expression. SickKids doesn’t just treat patients, it helps children create positive memories during challenging times.
In some ways, selling people on the idea that they should make a donation is not so different from a commercial brand selling a product or service. You need to raise awareness of your brand and build affinity so you can convince a person to part with their money. And once you’ve done that, you need to keep that customer or donor loyal. Except that with SickKids, “we’re not selling widgets. There is no coffee or handbags for sale. What we really sell is a feeling,” says Clark. “There is an emotion you feel when you donate. You feel pride.”
And that’s why the “VS” platform positioned donors as active participants in the fight against the greatest challenges in child health.
Above: From Cobourg to Cape Town, 150 balloon sculptures celebrate 150 years of SickKids breakthroughs and the global impact of its care.
Right: The “VS” platform redefined how charities show strength by positioning donors and patients as fighters; at SickKids, a birthday isn’t just another day, it’s a victory.
“Ultimately, we want to drive recurring revenue on monthly donations,” Clark says. “We need to make donors feel like they are fighting for these kids. That might start with an ad campaign, but donor communications are equally important, if not more so. When a donor signs up, they go on a journey with us. They get beautiful, emotive content that connects them to the cause, and shows them how their money is making a difference.”
High risk, high reward
Over the years, the “VS” work has won more than 400 creative awards – including 24 Best in Show or Grand Prix awards from around the globe. Positive results also showed up on the bottom line. Initially, SickKids had set a fundraising goal of $1.5 billion to build a new hospital and they exceeded that goal by $200 million. But not everyone was on board with the approach at first.
“Cossette’s then-CCO Carlos Moreno used to joke he kept a blazer hanging on the back of his door during the year leading up to the launch,” says Torrance. “So he could walk a high-value donor, board member or hospital leader through the strategy. We took a lot of time to socialize it – we wanted to make sure we had built an army of support by the time we launched the platform.”
In some ways, the concept wasn’t such a hard sell. After all, Cossette and the SickKids marketing team were pitching healthcare leaders on a platform that showcases resilience and strength. But leadership also needed to understand the radical shift in tone. Traditionally, SickKids donors were mostly women and largely middle-aged, but to meet the ambitious fundraising targets a new hospital demanded, they needed to bring in new donors – and that included men. A tonal shift
from sentimental to strong could help achieve that.
“We knew we had stumbled onto an incredibly simple and powerful way of articulating our mission,” says Torrance. “But we had no idea how impactful it was going to be and what the response would be. When the first campaign under the platform launched, we couldn’t get off social media all weekend because a Globe and Mail article covering the spot generated five million views in 24 hours. None of us had ever seen anything like it.”
The years of bold work led to other charities reaching out to SickKids to talk about how they could adopt a similar approach. But all of them had one question: How did you convince a conservative organization to do something so different? A big part of obtaining buyin was through the “rip film” the SickKids marketing team put together with Cossette and director Mark Zibert. Using found footage, they crafted a video that demonstrated what this tonal shift could look like.
“Before we even shot an ad, we had our stakeholders comfortable,” says Torrance. “And the biggest win of all was getting them comfortable with the fact that they didn’t like it – and didn’t need to. It was actually a good sign they didn’t like it, because they weren’t the intended audience. The platform was about expanding our base and not telling the same story in the same way to the same people. Once leadership understood that, they could appreciate they didn’t need to personally like it.”
Devastating, but hopeful
Toronto’s first Hospital for Sick Children was a rented row house and opened in 1875. But even as the venerable institution celebrates its first 150 years, its eyes are fixed firmly on the future. “We didn’t want to use the anniversary to do a retrospective,” says Torrance. “We didn’t [just] want to look back on 150 years of amazing discoveries. We wanted to look forward.”
So, as the hospital approached its sesquicentennial milestone earlier this year, SickKids looked to one of the oldest advertising agencies in North America – FCB, which is only two years older than SickKids, having been founded in Chicago in 1873 – to bring a fresh perspective.
“We needed to make this birthday meaningful – to give people a reason to want to donate to SickKids on its anniversary,” says Nancy Crimi-Lamanna, CCO at FCB. “It allowed us to look at birthdays in a new way – as something to celebrate, but also not something to take for granted. The truth is, patients at the Hospital for Sick Children have been fighting for birthdays for 150 years.”
FCB’s first commercial for its new client, “The Count,” begins with the parents of a young patient carrying a birthday cake to their child before they are wheeled into surgery on a gurney, with the familiar lyrics of “Happy birthday to you” echoing through a sparse hospital room. Then, the ad begins counting up with “are you
one, are you two, are you three,” making its way toward 150.
As the count rolls on, young patients train for the fight of their lives. They get knocked down and get back up, knocking down novelty-sized candles that symbolize another year has passed. And then these words flash on the screen in a bold white font: “When every birthday is a fight… every year is a gift.” CrimiLamanna calls the tone devastating, but hopeful. It retains much of the spirit of what made the “VS” platform so successful in the first place – and that’s no coincidence.
“Too often, agencies get bored of a platform before the public does, but we know that investment in long-term platforms makes advertising more effective,” Crimi-Lamanna says. “It would have felt really self-serving to recommend walking away from the ‘VS’ platform, but it was time to make it mean something new, to put the fight back into it.”
It was a subtle but significant change. Previously, “VS” had largely been about what a patient is fighting against. FCB flipped the script to make the platform about having something to fight for.
“It is just a little strategic twist to reinvigorate the way we think about it. And we have had a really positive response,” adds Crimi-Lamanna. “It was important to strike a balance between pulling on those heart strings and making donors feel like they are part of the fight. Sometimes, it can feel like the whole world is burning and you’re helpless to stop it. But helping a kid fight for another birthday feels doable.”
The same month it released “The Count,” SickKids also launched a global public art campaign that celebrates its many successes. The hospital admitted its first patient on April 3, 1875. And 150 years later, it revealed the first in a series of 150 balloon sculptures emblazoned with messages highlighting key moments in SickKids history – such as the 1998 launch of North America’s first multiorgan transplant program, and the 1979 establishment of the Herbie Fund, which has provided care to more than 800 patients from 100 different countries.
The result of a collaboration between SickKids and Citizen Relations, the team installed shiny cobalt sculptures everywhere from South Africa to Jamaica to Cobourg, Ontario.
an even loftier fundraising target for 2026, when SickKids will launch another campaign to raise $2.5 billion for its Precision Child Health (PCH), which uses health data and artificial intelligence to provide individualized care tailored to each child.
SickKids sees PCH as the beginning of a new era in pediatric medicine. It first announced the initiative in 2023, and has made it the centerpiece of its new five-year strategic plan: SickKids 2030. It’s a long-term project that will take decades to come to fruition – and the SickKids marketing team will build campaigns to support its overarching goals.
“Our marketing campaigns are built to support our fundraising campaigns and create consistent momentum behind them,” says Torrance. “It can take a decade to raise the kind of money that we are looking to raise. But we credit the branding and marketing work as being one of the main reasons we overdelivered on our fundraising goals.”
While in between major fundraising campaigns, the organization has started to tease the next launch. To achieve its
“We wanted our celebratory campaign to reflect the magnitude of the occasion,” says Sandra Chiovitti, the director of public relations at the SickKids Foundation. “Our earned media and organic social strategies are at the heart of this campaign and truthfully, there are way more stories to tell than there are days in the calendar. So we’ve had to be really selective and intentional about which ones to highlight.”
An even bigger, bolder future
Within SickKids’ marketing engine, there are both fundraising and advertising campaigns. They work in tandem, but can have very different timelines. In 2024, SickKids finished the nineyear fundraising campaign – supported by its “VS” marketing campaign – to build a new hospital. And the foundation has set
ambitious aims, the creative will need to be top quality.
“When you’re selling emotion, craft is everything,” says Torrance. “And we have been lucky to have some budget and to be able to create powerful work that partners want to be involved in – not just because it is SickKids, but because the work is good.”
Cossette and FCB have leveraged the power of SickKids’ message to create work that has won awards, drawn in donors and exceed all expectations. And it couldn’t have happened this way if they were not telling such compelling stories.
“We never want to compromise on craftsmanship,” Torrance says. “Any brand work or content work we do needs to make a deep emotional connection. A lot of charities feel like they don’t have a lot of money, but it doesn’t always take a lot of money to find ways to do beautiful craft. That’s been one of the keys to our success, from my point of view.”
The future is built on memory.
A quick look back at how agencies in Canada have always shown the way forward.
Cock eld Brown
MacLaren Advertising
J. Walter Thompson
Vickers & Benson
Ogilvy & Mather
Young & Rubicam
DDB Canada
BBDO Canada
Lowe Roche
Bensimon Byrne
TBWA
Canada’s rst agency to establish market research capabilities, combining desk and eld methods.
Built a 20-station radio network in the 1930s to broadcast hockey games across Canada.
Introduced the global agency model to Canada, shaping multinational brand strategy early on.
Created Canada’s rst-ever television ad, for General Motors.
Established a novel combination of emotional storytelling with systematic consumer insight.
Shifted advertising from tactics to brand-building during the golden age of TV.
Built Canada’s rst fully bilingual national network, unifying creative and media under one roof.
Fused emotion, data and design thinking into a new creative model – before it was the norm.
Set the standard for craft in Canadian advertising through its maniacal focus on “the work”.
Proved an independent Canadian shop could set global creative standards.
Made progressive politics and social justice central to mainstream Canadian advertising.
Localized the Disruption model, tailoring bold global strategy to Canadian clients and culture.
Broke regulatory ground by turning strict pharmaceutical ad laws into a creative advantage. Taxi
Grip Limited
The Hive
Union
Venture Communications
Juniper Park
Leo Burnett Toronto
john st.
Rethink
Zulu Alpha Kilo
LG2
Pioneered branded entertainment in Canada with Kokanee’s feature-length, fan-driven beer lm.
De ned shopper marketing in Canada, merging creative with purchase path strategy.
Made digital a starting point – not the afterthought – in big-brand Canadian campaigns.
Pioneered woman-owned leadership in Canada’s independent agency scene.
Rede ned brand architecture with sharp, design-led repositioning for global CPGs.
Turned “Like a Girl” from an insult into a global movement – de ning purpose-led advertising at scale.
Led a new era of agency self-promo with self-aware viral hits like “Pink Ponies”.
Turned instinctive human behaviour into brand platforms so iconic, the world did the advertising for them.
Rejected unpaid spec work and ignited a global conversation about creative respect and agency value.
Fused brand, architecture and experience design – turning physical space into storytelling media.
Set new benchmarks for purpose-led, behaviour-changing platforms through landmark work for BMO and CDSS. FCB
Arrivals + Departures
Tribal DDB Toronto
FCB/SIX
Performance Art
Sid Lee
Built an agency from Halifax out – strengthening our truly national agency tapestry.
Rede ned brand transparency through social and digital innovation.
Set a global benchmark in data-driven creativity by making personalization deeply emotional.
Pushed AI and automation into its ideas to unlock emotional storytelling across the customer journey.
Blurred the line between brand and environment, building immersive worlds through design.
Revived cinematic storytelling in brand campaigns, challenging short-form trends with emotional craft. Broken Heart Love
Camp Je erson
No Fixed Address
Balmoral
Specialized early in youth and culture- rst campaigns before in uencer marketing took o .
Pioneered an independent network model, launching multiple agencies under The Grid platform.
Developed a model of inclusive brand storytelling long before diversity was a mainstream priority.
Pioneered loyalty programs that turned purchase behaviour into personalized brand action. Bimm
Turned provincial tourism into global storytelling, rooted in local insight. Target
Berners Bowie Lee
Angry Butter y
Courage
Led early innovation in Canada’s micro-agency space.
Integrated PhDs into strategy to fuse academic insight with creative thinking.
Led a new wave of independent growth with high-craft, high-speed brand building.
Proximity, ONE23WEST, Havas, Grey, JAM CRM, William Thomas Digital, Palmer Jarvis, Zig, Publicis, Citizen Relations, CM, The&Partnership, Anomaly, SALT, Diamond, Edelman, Dentsu, The Kitchen, Klick… where there’s an agency, there’s innovation that’s helping all of us move ahead. Here’s to all of it, past, present and future.
*Each line re ects a milestone, though many agencies could easily claim more than one.
