Toronto-based agency No Fixed Address has a new Montreal address, following a deal to absorb the Supernormal Agency led by Jack Latulippe and Flore-Anne Ducharme.
The NFA Montreal office, or L’agence NFA Montreal, will consist of 10 people, while new clients as a result of the deal include Bell Media and A5 Hospitality, as well as additional AB InBev business (NFA has already been working with AB InBev).
Latulippe will be partner and chief creative officer, while and Ducharme is partner and general manager.
“There have been a few clients that have been asking us about our Quebec specific expertise,” said NFA co-founder Dave Lafond of the need to expand to Montreal. “We’ve been partnering with different companies to help us, and we just felt that we need our own solution in Montreal—we didn’t want to be reliant on other agencies.”
Since launching in late 2016, NFA has grown to more than 130 people in Toronto, producing work for clients including Dairy Farmers of Ontario, Questrade, J.P. Wiser’s, Mattamy Homes and Little Caesars.
The deal goes back to November, when Latulippe reached out to discuss NFA expanding into Montreal after hearing that the agency was looking to hire a creative director in the city.
Supernormal was growing quickly, and Latulippe called Lafond to discuss the possibility of something bigger than simply hiring a creative director. “It started exploding; our minds are very connected,” said Latulippe. “I felt like ‘Yeah this this is where I should be going’… NFA with its entrepreneurial spirit resembles me a lot.”
NFA says the deal is not an acquisition, instead describing it as Supernormal “joining the NFA platform.”
In a release announcing the deal, NFA co-founder Serge Rancourt emphasized that the new office will posses an identity that is distinct from what NFA has built in Toronto. “L’agence NFA Montreal is not a French version of NFA Toronto, but an entity that stands on its own and is an extension of our platform,” he said. “It will complement what we have already established locally in Toronto and what will now operate nationally.”