Millions of girls around the world are denied basic human rights simply because they are girls. We inspired Canadians to join the movement to fight gender inequality with a starkly emotional demonstration. When you touch hearts, you inspire change. This powerful campaign was brought to life in TV, online, in TSAs as well as in magazine.
 
The second campaign is for Gifts of Hope, a seasonal-based one-time giving opportunity. This incredibly hard-working campaign is in its third season. And yes, that is Gordon Pinsent as the goat.

This unique soundtrack brings hope to life. The University Hospital Foundation’s Mazankowski Centre in Alberta is a world leader in cardiac care – often providing hope where others cannot. This remarkable video shows donors how their donations come to life. This soundtrack is composed with heartbeats – and everything we need to sustain one.

Kudos to an extraordinary team: James Bliss at UHF, creators Matt Antonello and Mark Francolini, editor Andy Ames and Siobhan Quinn of the Editorial Factory, Pirate Toronto’s Tom Eymundson, Mark Rayjakovic, Lauren Davies and Ian Boddy. In Edmonton we were supported by ID Production’s Rosie Dransfield and her incredible team.

We launched Verve Elite and its flagship property The Shores of Port Credit from its logo to its website. This premium boutique hotel-style retirement residence offers an unrivaled range of lifestyles, courting the younger affluent senior looking to age in place, in style. Campaign includes website creation, newspaper, podcast ads, digital, social and sales materials.

Occupancy has risen from 33% to 52% in a few short months. 

The University Hospital Foundation teamed up with famed Vancouver muralist Carson Ting to bring the brain’s beautiful magic to life.

Carson created the mural in real time over 16 continuous hours. Donations of over $70 million to the University of Alberta Hospital’s remarkable Brain Centre have already saved thousands of lives, and spurred continuing breakthroughs in care and world-leading brain research.

But there’s more to do. Please donate here.

Creative credits go to CD/writer Matt Antonello and CD/art director Mark Mason, director Derek Shapton of Westside Studio, Andy Ames of The Editorial Factory, Tom Eymundson of Pirate Toronto.

Hats off to UHF clients James Bliss, Jessica Berant and Don Trembath.

We redefined retirement with this rebrand of Verve Senior Living. The rebrand now reflects its upscale offering and captures Verve’s warm welcoming persona.

The Joie de Verve campaign launched with radio, magazine, newspaper and digital and a full suite of elegantly rebranded sales materials.

Try convincing teens that milk is cool. They have the attention spans of gnats and claim to hate advertising. And milk itself? Hardly exciting. So solving this problem with a :30 TV spot was impossible. 

Instead, we fundamentally redefined the media landscape by launching Canada's first "dot spots". These 5-second spots were based on milk benefits – and we made 182 of them, so kids never saw the same one twice.  We also created Canada's first 3D cinema spots, then built a website so teens could make their own dots, and even customize their own roar. We gamified milk benefits for mobile engagement, then sponsored the Much Music Video Awards – even Lady Gaga got in on it. 

Teen milk consumption lifted, and we picked up every major creative award around the globe, including Cannes. 

Best of all....we made milk cool.

You want a tough category? Try tires. They're a low interest, grudge purchase. Fountain Tire is one of the largest tire retailers in western Canada. The first spot is a wonderful activation for GROWCalgary, a non-profit urban farm that ensures fresh produce for food banks. Fountain Tire offered a helping hand when it was needed most, and it ensured a happier Family Day for many Calgarians. It was loved by all, even the mayor of Calgary tweeted about it.

The next two spots highlight their funny spokesman, who is in his 20th year of representing the brand. He's a powerful retail force, especially in radio. The TV highlights the unique ownership structure of FT and how their extraordinary level of service makes customers feel.

Everyone vilifies gravel pits and quarries, but we need aggregate to build hospitals, schools and communities. And the closer it’s sourced, the better it is environmentally. Many don’t realize that after the aggregate is extracted, the land is remediated beautifully – the Guelph Aboretum and The Brickworks are prime examples. GravelFacts.ca presents Ontarians with a more balanced view of the industry.

Art Direction: David Houghton

Unlike Americans, Canadians are not afraid of the tax man. They just consider taxes a pain in the ass. Armed with this insight we created a fictional illness called "tax pain" and offered up H&R Block as the cure. This highly successful campaign came alive on air and in radio, as well as in digital and social. 

Chocolate milk had been demonized as a sugary kid beverage. Yet scientific research indicated that chocolate milk offers the ideal balance of protein, carbs and fluids to make it the perfect post-workout recovery beverage for athetes.

Armed with science, we successfully relaunched CM against sports drinks to coaches, trainers and athletes. This powerful repositioning is now being echoed in the U.S. This campaign has been recognized by the ADCC, Marketing and any athlete worth their salt.

We brought The World's Most Interesting Man to Toronto. Beyond transit he will also be making an appearance in mobile so you can FaceTime with him – if you're interesting enough.

We needed to make lottery games relevant to the next generation. We knew the target loved high stakes poker but was too intimidated to play. We launched a poker-based lottery game that offered poker thrills without the intimidation. This campaign kicked off with TV, digital, POS, Metro dailies and an interactive online boxing game to joust with the monarchs. 

It was one of OLG’s most successful launches by far, quadrupling sales objectives. It also won a Gold Cassies.

The Cassies is a rarity among awards shows; it recognizes the work that actually made cash registers ring. This campaign was primarily digital, but also ran as full pages in Strategy. Ironicially, it won an award in the ADCC Show.

Ripley's is the first new attraction in Toronto in twenty years. We launched the Aquarium with outdooor, digital, social and print.

Results? Line-ups that wrapped around the building.

Colon cancer is 90% curable if detected early. 50 is the recommended age to start screening. We needed to educate Canadians. We chose a more playful approach to overcome intimidation.

Full page ads in the Globe took our message across the country. We made transit seats a vehicle for our message and on Facebook we reminded those celebrating their 50th that it was time to get checked. 

Tandia understands that everyone has unique financial dreams and needs. But the one thing that we have in common?

We all want our money to work harder. Thanks to Tandia and its two fast and funny characters called “Money” this philosophy came to life…literally.

Preventing friends from drinking and driving used to be awkward. We've made it the new normal, by seamlessly weaving it into the hosting narrative. Hosts like to research before they entertain, so we created the ultimate go-to resource for them – a site chock-full of tips and videos on decor, music and recipes by some of Ontario's most accomplished hosts. Then we gave mocktails a sophisticated new twist by rebranding them as 0% Cocktails. Digital video ads and social helped bring the story to life.