October 3
Bleublancrouge has a new senior leadership team steering the Toronto office with the appointments of Joumana Oweida (right in top photo) as VP and general manager, while Chris Dacyshyn (middle) and Julie Markle (left) join as co-executive creative directors (top photo left to right).
Joumana joins BBR from FCB Montreal where she was vice-president and managing director. Dacyshyn and Markle spent the last decade at Ogilvy, where they were group creative directors on Unilever and Kimberly Clark.
Scotiabank is prepping a film about hockey that will use footage captured by the country’s millions of hockey families. It’s like A Day in the Life of Canada for hockey (see the explainer video below).
The bank is asking people to capture all of their hockey-related activity—from early-morning practices to packing their equipment to playing a game—on Nov. 17. The footage, which Scotiabank says can last from 10 seconds to 24 hours, will form the basis of “Hockey 24: A Film by Canada” that will be released in spring 2020.
Boutique agency Bishop Integrated has rebranded as Brock & Belle. Catering to companies in the food and beverage industry, Brock & Belle specializes in custom campaigns, long-form content and data analytics. The agency is also prepping a new quarterly trends report.
The rebrand comes amid new client wins including projects for both Metro and Kraft, as well as new senior hires including Chris Marshall as vice-president creative director, and Ashley Oosterom as VP, business development.
“Food is often at the centre of our social experiences. And with the launch of Brock &
Belle, we are excited to inspire and educate audiences with relevant and insightful
content within the evolving world of food and beverage,” said Brock & Belle president Ryan Sookhoo in a release.
October 2
Back in 2008, CTV caused a classically Canadian controversy when it landed the rights to the iconic theme song to CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. Since then the tune has been used by TSN for its hockey broadcasts, but never on CBC or Rogers since the latter won the rights to most NHL hockey in Canada in 2013. Until Wednesday night that is, when Pepsi dropped this new ad featuring the famous anthem.
Keurig’s Van Houtte is a new official partner of Cirque du Soleil, with its coffee being served at touring shows in Canada. The deal is being used to help celebrate the coffee brand’s 100th anniversary. Van Houtte’s advertising this year has shown its Master Roaster mastering other activities. As part of the Cirque deal, he went under the Cirque Big Top to film a new spot, “Master of Acrobatics.”
“Our relationship creates an opportunity to position the master of contemporary circus and the Master Roaster within a major campaign that’s memorable and inclusive,” said Stéphane Renauld, director, brand management at Keurig Canada Inc.
Loblaw continues to find new ways to roll out its idiosyncratic No Name brand campaign, which launched on Twitter back in June.
Today, it’s a No Name press release that—in the now familiar No Name voice—connects the simplicity of the brand to the Simple Check on No Name packaging. The checkmark indicates products made without complicated big-word ingredients like monosodium glutamate.
Loblaw extended the simplicity theme with a survey that revealed people are stressed by the disorganization in their kitchen, and signed on organization expert Ivanka Siolkowsky as a brand partner. “If you feel stressed every time you open your kitchen pantry and struggle to find the ingredients you are looking for, it’s a sign you need to eliminate word pollution, (that means less words on the labels)” said Siolkowsky, in the release.
October 1
In the May, Turkey Farmers of Canada began a new campaign, its first since 2004, to push turkey consumption year-round. But for Thanksgiving, an already busy time for turkey sellers, the organization is out with a series of print ads specifically intended to connect with new Canadians. The three ads use multi-ethnic families to recreate Norman Rockwell’s famous illustration “Freedom from Want.”
The ads may use American iconography, but the message is distinctly Canadian. “Simply bring the tastes of your culture and traditions to Canadian turkey, whether hoisin and five-spice or chilies and curry,” reads the “open letter” being used to deliver the message and introduce the ads. The campaign is from Zeno Group.
AXE has launched a new body spray with scents of leather and vanilla, but since AXE is mostly for teenage boys, they named it Sneakers and Cookies.
To highlight the WTF combination, the Unilever brand created a series of “What the Fred?” moments on video, with Toronto Raptors star Fred VanVleet showing up in unexpected places—including the set of TSN’s highlights show SC with Jay and Dan and the Twitch steam of gamer Nickeh30—to ask “What’s your favourite smell?”
Edelman led creative and influencer marketing, while production was by U-Studio and Mindshare handled media.
Last April, Loblaw introduced it’s first cross-banner advertising campaign for its “Market” (ie. non-discount) brands: Loblaws, Zehrs, Provigo, City Market, etc.
Under the tagline “Food Lovers Unite,” the creative was all about that passion of food lovers: they have have different opinions about what is good and what isn’t, but so long as they care, then they should go to a Loblaw store, because Loblaw cares too. The anchor TV spot showed hot-button food debates—is pineapple good on pizza, can you put ketchup on steak, etc.
Loblaw just released a new version for Thanksgiving, showing similarly contentious food topics (brussels sprouts, good or bad?) around a holiday that is all about food—with a cover of the 1995 Montell Jordan song “This is how we do it.” The campaign is by John St.
Hill+Knowlton Strategies has hired Kristy Payne as general manager of its Toronto office. Payne joins H+K from Plan International Canada, where she was chief communications officer. Prior to that, she worked at Coca-Cola.
“Having worked on the client side, Kristy not only brings insights into how we can better deliver on exceptional client service, but also a solid understanding of business operations and how to represent a global brand like H+K in the Canadian market,” said Sheila Wisniewski, president and CEO of H+K Canada. H+K also expanded the mandate for Stephen Smart to general manager, Western Canada.
Kim Blanchette is the Argyle Group’s new senior vice-president and general manager for Western Canada. She was most recently vice-president of communications and international relations at the Alberta Energy Regulator.
“Kim is known across Canada for leadership in strategic communication, public engagement, employee engagement, and crisis, issues and reputation management. We are excited to welcome her to Argyle’s growing western and national team,” says Argyle CEO Daniel Tisch.
Cossette recently made three VP level additions to its strategy team.
Fernando Aloise has been promoted to VP Strategy. Aloise has been with Cossette since 2016, working on Egg Farmers of Canada, City of Toronto and General Mills. Nancy Beattie recently joined Cossette as VP group strategy leader focusing on the McDonald’s business. Beattie has held senior leadership roles at Taxi, Leo Burnett and Forsman & Bodenfors. Debra Kavchak-Taylor has also joined Cossette as VP strategy from Publicis. Her focus will be Walmart and the Ministry of Health, a recent win for Cossette.
“We know that the right strategic approach is the key to building strong and lasting connections between brands and consumers and the deep, diverse experience of these leaders will enrich the level of strategic direction and leadership at Cossette,” said Daniel Shearer, executive vice-president and GM of Cossette.
