HOW ANSWERING WHY CAN PROPEL A BRAND FORWARD
The North Face needed to remind the world why exploration matters. Along the way, we discovered that today's explorers are often misunderstood. We needed to change people's perceptions. Question Madness challenged the preconceived ideas of a life well lived, ultimately proving that feeding our curiosity is the clearest path to progress.
HOW AN IDENTITY-SHAPING TRUTH SPARKED A BRAND CRUSADE
This is the story of how a team transformed from NBA outsiders into a fierce collective with the backing of an entire country. The Raptors embraced their outsider status and went all in with their rebrand.
Since 2014, We The North has become the rallying cry of the Raptors and their fans to take pride in their unique identity. As the team started clawing its way closer and closer to their first championship, We The North turned into a movement that grew louder and spread further. Suddenly, We The North didn’t end at the Canadian border anymore. It reached across the planet to capture the collective imagination and was adopted by people and brands everywhere who felt compelled to appropriate it and make it their own.
HOW 100 YEARS OF HISTORY CAN BEGIN NOW
To theme the Centennial Anniversary season, we decided to flip convention on it’s head and point towards the future. 100 years became 001 as a new roster of this historic club looked to carve out a future all their own.
After decades of marginal success on the ice, the team needed to rejeuvenate fan love and attention ahead of its 100 year anniversary. With a young lineup of future superstars on the roster, the timing couldn't have been better.
HOW TO RALLY NATIONAL PRIDE WHEN NATIONAL PRIDE IS SPLINTERING
Partnering with The Canadian Olympic Committee and CBC/Radio-Canada, we uncovered that every Team Canada athlete has a personal story of adversity that we don’t see; and through their bravery overcame. We spotlighted these human stories — with the help of Canadian icons Celine Dion and Michael J. Fox — to inspire every Canadian facing adversity in their own lives.
Narrated by Canadian Icon Michael J. Fox
TRANSFORMING A BRAND INTO A MINDSET
Warrior Sports (A New Balance Company) needed a new brand strategy & global platform to set the stage for growth and distinction. What we discovered was while others were trying to define their names, Warrior had an opportunity to live up to theirs.
To be a Warrior is to have a growth mindset. An unquenchable thirst to transcend limitation and status quo. Warriors banding together through a collective mindset to BREAKTHROUGH along the journey of becoming the best version of oneself.
HOW TO ELEVATE MOTIVATION TO OVERCOME RATIONAL ROADBLOCKS
After a boom to sales over the pandemic, Sea-Doo faced softening interest in the face of economic headwinds. The brand needed to remind those who love the waves that quality time out on rivers, lakes and oceans are essential to living their best lives. We reiterate the importance of escaping the stresses of the day-to-day by making it a priority to get out on your favourite bodies of water for fun and adventure.
To promote the wide variety of distinct watercraft from Sea-Doo, we created ‘Your Ride. Your Reason.’ to invite riders of all experience levels to make the time to explore everything the open water has to offer.
HOW TO WIN AS A CHALLENGER BRAND
Turns out many Canadians still use the bank account their parents signed them up for as little kids. This means they’ve been paying sky-high bank fees their whole lives.
We teamed up EQ Bank with Canada’s favourite father-son comedy duo, Eugene and Dan Levy, to spotlight this problem and give Canadians a second chance at their first bank account.
HOW TO WIN AS A CHALLENGER BRAND
Meet EQ Bank. The bank for people who are fed up with a world that feels like it’s designed to take from them. By surfacing decades of frustration, this challenger bank created big brand attention and acquired new customers within a category dominated by 5 big banks in Canada.
Less Take, More Make. A bank who finally enables you. A bank for Makers looking to maximize their unlimited potential.
HOW AN OUTCOME CAN CREATE A CATEGORY OF ONE
Endy needed to shake up a sleepy industry. We bucked the category conventions of just talking about sleep in favour of the tremendous outcomes it enables.
Rise To Shine – a new platform from Canada’s favourite mattress brand that celebrates the great intention we have behind a good night sleep. Making great waking hours became what we’re here for.
HOW TO UNITE COMMUNITY BY MAKING THE PAST AN INNOVATION
The 1934 Chatham Coloured All-Stars were the first all-Black team to win an Ontario Baseball Association Championship. To keep their memory alive, we recreated the team in baseball’s most popular video game — MLB The Show.
We recreated the team using the game’s existing customization tools. We then made the 13-player roster available for gamers to build and play as the team for themselves.
Recognition
2023 Cannes - Shortlist
2023 ADC Awards - Best of Discipline, Gold, Silver, Shortlist x3
2023 One Show - Merit, Shortlist x4
2023 Clios - Bronze, Shortlist
2023 Webby Awards - Nominee x2
2023 ADCC Awards - Bronze x2
2023 Marketing Awards - Silver, Merit
2023 Atomic Awards - Silver
2023 CMA Awards - Gold
Mentions
CBC
CTV News
Yahoo News
Trend Hunter
AdWeek
Muse By Clio
LBB Behind The Work
HOW TO UNDUE UNINDENTED GROWTH TO PROTECT BRAND REPUTATION
As the Summit Series premium collection by The North Face grew in mass popularity, the brand equity began to erode. We needed to restore the collection of high performance mountain gear to its high performance roots.
So we reposition Summit Series as the gear only extreme athletes rely on to survive harsh mountain conditions, not luxury shopping malls.
The promise of The North Face’s new Apex Flex rain jacket was that it is so comfortable, it would change how you felt about rain, turning it from something you run from, to something you run to. To get this message across, we teamed up with Spotify and the band White Denim to create the first-ever weather-targeted music drop, i.e. an exclusive track that would only play in locations where it was raining.
HOW TO OWN A CONSUMPTION OCCASION WITH GUSTO
Stella Artois' goal was to become the beer synonymous with progressive dining, so we helped them create their largest ever proprietary experience platform called Le Savoir. The platform stretched from a series of global ticketed events, to social content, at-home hosting kits, and even an interactive music video made in collaboration with The Roots that used experimental psychology to change the flavors in a Stella Artois.
HOW TO TRANSFORM A DEMO INTO A GLOBAL BRAND EXPERIENCE
Samsung is one of the most iconic innovators our world has ever known. We needed to be as innovative as the products, in order to capture the attention of an audience who is becoming more desensitized to innovation by the day.
Twenty days, ten cities, and a legendary journey. Next is Now created “Now Moments”, putting the smartphone features to the test like never before.
This is an example of a great idea where strategy isn’t needed. Near the beginning of the pandemic I simply shared with my creative partner an article that documented a rise in domestic violence due to isolation. This is what they came up with. We wrote some Effie awards and helped Juniper Park\TBWA win the Grand Effie and agency of the year.
The Signal for Help is a one-handed gesture for victims of domestic abuse that has become part of the global non-verbal lexicon. Launched through a network of women’s groups and opensource asserts, the initiative has obtained 5.7 BILLION impressions worldwide, for a total estimated earned media value of over $53 million. The signal made global news with cases like Syrian YouTuber, Om Sayf, two women in two separate incidents in Spain, the rescue of an abducted 16-year-old girl in Kentucky and another in Tennessee.
AWARDS
Cannes – Silver, Bronze, Glass
One Show – 3x merit, 1x silver, 3x silver, gold.
Clio – 2x gold
D&AD – yellow pencil, graphite pencil
Effies – 3x gold Grand Prix.
Marketing awards – 3x gold, 3x silver, best of show.
ADCC – 2x silver, 2x gold
