In early 2019, we launched The Message with a goal of being a vibrant new voice covering advertising marketing and media in Canada—to share stories from across the industry, break news, make sense of the head-spinning transformative changes sweeping across advertising (and the rest of the world), and to shine a spotlight on the amazing work and creative thinkers from coast to coast to coast.
Aside from the generous support of our angel investors who got us off the ground, we did that for the most part on our own. That is until last summer, when—as many of you will know by now—we were acquired by Haymarket, the parent company of Campaign.
Early in our discussions with Haymarket about a possible deal, we realized we’d be perfect together; Campaign was born in London more than 50 years ago with the same passion and dedication to the ad industry that fuelled us.
By bringing Campaign to Canada, our mission would remain unchanged, but we’d have more resources and support to deliver on that mission in a bigger, better, and more ambitious way. In two days, you’ll see proof of just how good that can be.
On Thursday, we will officially introduce the Campaign brand to Canada with the launch of one of the coolest new websites we’ve ever seen. Campaign will eventually roll out the new look and feel across its eight sites around the world, but chose Canada to do it first. Anyone already registered to The Message will now be registered to Campaign, we just need you to please reset your password the first time you visit.
To demonstrate how much the changes are about substance AND style, we’ll publish the first pieces of what will be an animating editorial theme for the rest of the year.
It’s journalism with a purpose—to figure out how an already fantastic Canadian ad industry can become even better. We’ve been diligently working on that for the past few weeks, and we’re excited to share it with you.
In many ways what you’ll see and read starting Thursday is the fullest representation of what we wanted to do when we launched The Message—and will do that now because we are Campaign.
This, then, marks the final piece of editorial content from The Message (although the name will live on in our new podcast). We've said multiple times that we sincerely appreciate the faith and trust you've placed in us over the years, and that sentiment is just as applicable today.
And so we say goodbye from The Message, but look forward to speaking with you all very soon.
