Creativity is the lifeblood of this industry, and most of what we do here is talk and write about the application of creativity to solve business problems. On Wednesday, we shared our 10 favourite examples with the first part of our annual Mighty List.
But this is also an industry full of people who like to imagine solutions for all kinds of challenges—moving not only the industry forward, but often society itself. It's the application of creativity, but with an emphasis on changing thinking, breaking down barriers, and challenging the old ways of doing things to imagine new and better ways. We’ve always had a soft spot for those kinds of stories.
Today, we present the second half of our Mighty List for 2023: 10 people, campaigns and big ideas that stood out for us for trying to make the world a better place. The list is largely subjective, chosen by us without any real criteria, but with lots of consideration, discussion and debate.
There are a range of ideas, people and campaigns profiled below, but we believe they all share one attribute—creativity that goes beyond just solving business problems to solving human ones.
Native Women's Association of Canada—"Change the Bill"
From Wilfred Laurier, to William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Sir Robert Borden, Canadian banknotes have traditionally been the domain of old white men (although at least Sir John A. MacDonald was replaced by Viola Desmond in 2018).
This year, however, the Native Women's Association of Canada took aim at men's grip on our money with a bold program called "Change the Bill." Developed by Taxi, the program was described by the NWAC as “reconciliation through art.”
It offered a colourful reimagining of our currency, featuring 12 Indigenous women whose achievements have largely gone unheralded—from Elsie Knott, the first woman in Canada to be elected as Chief of a First Nation; Mi’kmaq poet and songwriter Rita Joe; and Margaret Pictou, the first female Mi’kmaq Chief of the Eel River Bar Reserve.
While "Change the Bill" is unlikely to bring about change on something as ironbound as our currency, at least in the short-term, it served as a powerful reminder of the marginalization of Canada's Indigenous population. — CP
Hershey, with Mint—"HerForShe"
One of the biggest marketing stories of the year was Bud Light’s disastrous handling of the Dylan Mulvaney controversy. The AB InBev brand worked with the TikTok star—who earned a large following for documenting her life as a trans woman—for a typical influencer post around March Madness.
But Bud quickly abandoned Mulvaney when the anti-trans intelligentsia lost their damn minds—as they are wont to do over important stuff like whether or not a trans woman drinks the same beer as them—and started machine-gunning cases of the brew.
The fallout for the fiasco went on and on.
But where Bud Light got it wrong, Hershey appeared to get it right just weeks before.
For International Women’s Day, the chocolate giant's Canadian marketing team rolled out its campaign on the #HerForShe platform. Working with Mint, they created limited edition wrappers that featured five different women chosen for their “passion, activism, and work in their communities” to create positive change.
Among the five was Fae Johnstone, a 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate who is also a trans woman. Here too, the anti-trans backlash blew up, and there were predictable calls for a boycott—though to our knowledge nobody machine-gunned boxes of Hershey chocolate bars.
The big difference from Bud Light was that Hershey stuck by Johnstone.
“Hershey has been backing me up through and through,” she told CBC about a week after the firestorm started. “[T]hey've stood by my presence in the campaign, and that—particularly at these times, when there is a global cancel campaign against Hershey's—really means a lot.”
There’s a good faith discussion to be had about whether or not marketers have gone too far in their purpose marketing efforts the past few years. But when brands do choose to work with marginalized people and groups, they'd better have the strength, conviction and, quite frankly, the basic human decency, to stand by them when the angry mob comes over the hill with their boycott hashtags and burning tiki torches. — DB
Publicis—"Working with Cancer"
A cancer diagnosis is life-changing, but it shouldn't be career-changing. That simple insight led Publicis Groupe's global CEO Arthur Sadoun to create "Working With Cancer," a global coalition that asks businesses to provide more support to people living with the disease.
The initiative grew out of Sadoun's personal battle with cancer, during which he discovered that up to half of people diagnosed with the disease are afraid to tell their employer for fear of being stigmatized.
“Arthur has a great turn of phrase to explain this," Publicis Groupe Canada CEO Andrew Bruce told The Message at the time. "‘First you’re afraid for your life, and then you’re afraid for your job.’ You should never be afraid for your job.”
Publicis pledged to help employees battling cancer by securing their job, salary level and benefits for at least one year, and providing those in a primary caregiver role with custom personal and professional support. It also created a pledge for companies to sign, which includes major brands like Meta, Toyota, and Unilever.
It was also able to marshal its vast creative and media resources to create a powerful ad it described as a "global wake-up call," that aired during the Super Bowl—making it the first advertising holding company to advertise in one of the sports world's marquee events.
There's a lot of negativity directed towards advertising, but "Working With Cancer" is a perfect example of the industry using its powers of creativity and clout to create true societal impact. — CP
Dove, with Ogilvy Toronto , Ogilvy London—"The Cost of Beauty"
“The Cost of Beauty” is a powerful, poignant three-minute short film from Ogilvy Toronto and London for Dove’s “Self Esteem Project.” The film is about Mary, who seems bright, happy, and healthy until she gets her first smartphone. From there, the story slides into sadness and heartache as Mary becomes obsessed with unhealthy weight loss content, and ends up in hospital with an eating disorder.
“The Cost of Beauty” is the story of one girl, but it’s really a story about an entire generation being let down by the adults in charge.
In launching the campaign, Dove cited research which revealed that social media is harming the mental health of more than half of Canadian kids, with 80% of youth mental health specialists saying it is fuelling a mental health crisis. The research also found that 65% of kids 10-17 say they have seen content encouraging weight loss, and 70% said social media can make kids want to change their appearance.
During our discussion about this one, we also revisited the debate that has hung around Dove since it launched the Real Beauty platform: does a beauty brand owned by Unilever really care about issues like realistic beauty standards and mental health?
Years from now, I suspect our kids, or our kid’s kids, will in fact be asking why Dove was talking about these issue, why a soap brand was talking about how smartphones and social media—intentionally designed to be addictive, and monetized by advertising—were causing anxiety, depression and eating disorders. They may ask why Dove, but what they will mean was why was nobody else talking about it? — DB
Jems, with Dentsu Creative—"F*cking Old"
Is there anything more emblematic of being "old" than a fondness for hard candies? What if we said catching chlamydia and gonorrhea?
Well, cases of both STIs are skyrocketing among frisky older Canadians, with chlamydia and gonorrhea rates for people 65 and older rising by 267% and 388% respectively over the past decade.
To combat this increase, Jems Condoms combined seniors' well-documented love of hard candies with their equally enthusiastic—albeit largely ignored—appetite for sex to create a bold program called "F*cking Old."
It consisted of boxes of hard candies available on the Jems website during STI Awareness Month. The candies were available in a whimsical-looking box wrapped with a conversation starter about sex and came in four flavours (Bedroom Berry, Bawdy Banana, Pleasurable Pear and Sensual Strawberry). Each box also contained a pack of Jems condoms.
"Once they’re done unwrapping the candies, they can start wrapping up their own fruity tootsies,” proclaimed Jems on its website, coining a phrase we really hope doesn't become part of the vernacular.
Jems' acknowledgement that sex isn't the sole domain of the young'uns was not only a smart nod to the ageist idea that people of a certain age have no interest in sex, but was also a shrewd business play—potentially opening up an entirely new and heretofore unexplored/ignored market. — CP
Craft PR—"Salary Disclosure"
Craft PR president Lisa Pasquin said she felt "sick to my stomach" after deciding to make the seven-and-a-half year old agency's salary bands publicly available this year. It was a big, bold move that could have theoretically put the agency at a competitive disadvantage.
Pasquin's efforts were largely motivated by a desire to help close the gender pay gap. According to OECD data, there is an average 16.7% gap between the annual median earnings of women and men in Canada.
Ten months later, Pasquin said the decision has had an "incredibly positive" impact on the business. The salaries are now a permanent feature on the shop's website, and Pasquin believes their disclosure has contributed to a "record" number of applicants for posted positions.
The agency also continues to receive unsolicited applications, many of which mention the agency's commitment to salary transparency. She also credits the salary disclosure with playing a key role in employee retention, with only one member of the shop's 35-person team taking a job elsewhere this year.
Responding to Pasquin's LinkedIn post, people hailed the idea as an example of "radical public candour" and "bold and brave," although some did question why the disclosure does not extend beyond VP roles or mention bonuses.
Specifically speaking to that, Pasquin said that there are currently only two people above the level of VP in the company. "It simply didn't feel necessary to share that information at this point in our growth," she said. As for the second part, the company changed its approach as part of this effort, with every employee now paid a percentage of their salary as part of bonuses. That percentage is the same for every employee—it was 8% in 2022—ensuring equity across the team.
The only frustrating aspect, said Pasquin, is that more agencies didn't follow suit. "To my knowledge, no one else has shared their salary bands in response to our move." — CP
Love & Nudes, with McCann—“The Stage Zero Collection”
Chantal Carter, a Black Canadian entrepreneur, launched her company Love & Nudes in 2015 to create comfortable skin tone, wire-free bras and underwear for black women and WOC. The brand strives to accommodate all shades of skin, in a fashion industry that has long failed to include darker skin in the definition of “nude.”
This year, the brand worked with McCann and breast surgical oncologist Dr. Mojola Omole, to develop an innovation to correct another example of systemic bias by launching “The Stage Zero Collection”– the world's first breast cancer screening bras for Black women.
But this is also an industry full of people who like to imagine solutions for all kinds of challenges—moving not only the industry forward, but often society itself. It's the application of creativity, but with an emphasis on changing thinking, breaking down barriers, and challenging the old ways of doing things to imagine new and better ways. We’ve always had a soft spot for those kinds of stories.
Today, we present the second half of our Mighty List for 2023: 10 people, campaigns and big ideas that stood out for us for trying to make the world a better place. The list is largely subjective, chosen by us without any real criteria, but with lots of consideration, discussion and debate.
There are a range of ideas, people and campaigns profiled below, but we believe they all share one attribute—creativity that goes beyond just solving business problems to solving human ones.
Native Women's Association of Canada—"Change the Bill"
From Wilfred Laurier, to William Lyon Mackenzie King, and Sir Robert Borden, Canadian banknotes have traditionally been the domain of old white men (although at least Sir John A. MacDonald was replaced by Viola Desmond in 2018).This year, however, the Native Women's Association of Canada took aim at men's grip on our money with a bold program called "Change the Bill." Developed by Taxi, the program was described by the NWAC as “reconciliation through art.”
It offered a colourful reimagining of our currency, featuring 12 Indigenous women whose achievements have largely gone unheralded—from Elsie Knott, the first woman in Canada to be elected as Chief of a First Nation; Mi’kmaq poet and songwriter Rita Joe; and Margaret Pictou, the first female Mi’kmaq Chief of the Eel River Bar Reserve.
While "Change the Bill" is unlikely to bring about change on something as ironbound as our currency, at least in the short-term, it served as a powerful reminder of the marginalization of Canada's Indigenous population. — CP
Hershey, with Mint—"HerForShe"
One of the biggest marketing stories of the year was Bud Light’s disastrous handling of the Dylan Mulvaney controversy. The AB InBev brand worked with the TikTok star—who earned a large following for documenting her life as a trans woman—for a typical influencer post around March Madness.
But Bud quickly abandoned Mulvaney when the anti-trans intelligentsia lost their damn minds—as they are wont to do over important stuff like whether or not a trans woman drinks the same beer as them—and started machine-gunning cases of the brew.
The fallout for the fiasco went on and on.
But where Bud Light got it wrong, Hershey appeared to get it right just weeks before.
For International Women’s Day, the chocolate giant's Canadian marketing team rolled out its campaign on the #HerForShe platform. Working with Mint, they created limited edition wrappers that featured five different women chosen for their “passion, activism, and work in their communities” to create positive change.
Among the five was Fae Johnstone, a 2SLGBTQIA+ advocate who is also a trans woman. Here too, the anti-trans backlash blew up, and there were predictable calls for a boycott—though to our knowledge nobody machine-gunned boxes of Hershey chocolate bars.
The big difference from Bud Light was that Hershey stuck by Johnstone.
“Hershey has been backing me up through and through,” she told CBC about a week after the firestorm started. “[T]hey've stood by my presence in the campaign, and that—particularly at these times, when there is a global cancel campaign against Hershey's—really means a lot.”
There’s a good faith discussion to be had about whether or not marketers have gone too far in their purpose marketing efforts the past few years. But when brands do choose to work with marginalized people and groups, they'd better have the strength, conviction and, quite frankly, the basic human decency, to stand by them when the angry mob comes over the hill with their boycott hashtags and burning tiki torches. — DB
Publicis—"Working with Cancer"
A cancer diagnosis is life-changing, but it shouldn't be career-changing. That simple insight led Publicis Groupe's global CEO Arthur Sadoun to create "Working With Cancer," a global coalition that asks businesses to provide more support to people living with the disease.
The initiative grew out of Sadoun's personal battle with cancer, during which he discovered that up to half of people diagnosed with the disease are afraid to tell their employer for fear of being stigmatized.
“Arthur has a great turn of phrase to explain this," Publicis Groupe Canada CEO Andrew Bruce told The Message at the time. "‘First you’re afraid for your life, and then you’re afraid for your job.’ You should never be afraid for your job.”
Publicis pledged to help employees battling cancer by securing their job, salary level and benefits for at least one year, and providing those in a primary caregiver role with custom personal and professional support. It also created a pledge for companies to sign, which includes major brands like Meta, Toyota, and Unilever.
It was also able to marshal its vast creative and media resources to create a powerful ad it described as a "global wake-up call," that aired during the Super Bowl—making it the first advertising holding company to advertise in one of the sports world's marquee events.
There's a lot of negativity directed towards advertising, but "Working With Cancer" is a perfect example of the industry using its powers of creativity and clout to create true societal impact. — CP
Dove, with Ogilvy Toronto , Ogilvy London—"The Cost of Beauty"
“The Cost of Beauty” is a powerful, poignant three-minute short film from Ogilvy Toronto and London for Dove’s “Self Esteem Project.” The film is about Mary, who seems bright, happy, and healthy until she gets her first smartphone. From there, the story slides into sadness and heartache as Mary becomes obsessed with unhealthy weight loss content, and ends up in hospital with an eating disorder.
“The Cost of Beauty” is the story of one girl, but it’s really a story about an entire generation being let down by the adults in charge.
In launching the campaign, Dove cited research which revealed that social media is harming the mental health of more than half of Canadian kids, with 80% of youth mental health specialists saying it is fuelling a mental health crisis. The research also found that 65% of kids 10-17 say they have seen content encouraging weight loss, and 70% said social media can make kids want to change their appearance.
During our discussion about this one, we also revisited the debate that has hung around Dove since it launched the Real Beauty platform: does a beauty brand owned by Unilever really care about issues like realistic beauty standards and mental health?
Years from now, I suspect our kids, or our kid’s kids, will in fact be asking why Dove was talking about these issue, why a soap brand was talking about how smartphones and social media—intentionally designed to be addictive, and monetized by advertising—were causing anxiety, depression and eating disorders. They may ask why Dove, but what they will mean was why was nobody else talking about it? — DB
Jems, with Dentsu Creative—"F*cking Old"
Is there anything more emblematic of being "old" than a fondness for hard candies? What if we said catching chlamydia and gonorrhea?
Well, cases of both STIs are skyrocketing among frisky older Canadians, with chlamydia and gonorrhea rates for people 65 and older rising by 267% and 388% respectively over the past decade.
To combat this increase, Jems Condoms combined seniors' well-documented love of hard candies with their equally enthusiastic—albeit largely ignored—appetite for sex to create a bold program called "F*cking Old."It consisted of boxes of hard candies available on the Jems website during STI Awareness Month. The candies were available in a whimsical-looking box wrapped with a conversation starter about sex and came in four flavours (Bedroom Berry, Bawdy Banana, Pleasurable Pear and Sensual Strawberry). Each box also contained a pack of Jems condoms.
"Once they’re done unwrapping the candies, they can start wrapping up their own fruity tootsies,” proclaimed Jems on its website, coining a phrase we really hope doesn't become part of the vernacular.
Jems' acknowledgement that sex isn't the sole domain of the young'uns was not only a smart nod to the ageist idea that people of a certain age have no interest in sex, but was also a shrewd business play—potentially opening up an entirely new and heretofore unexplored/ignored market. — CP
Craft PR—"Salary Disclosure"
Craft PR president Lisa Pasquin said she felt "sick to my stomach" after deciding to make the seven-and-a-half year old agency's salary bands publicly available this year. It was a big, bold move that could have theoretically put the agency at a competitive disadvantage.
Pasquin's efforts were largely motivated by a desire to help close the gender pay gap. According to OECD data, there is an average 16.7% gap between the annual median earnings of women and men in Canada.
Ten months later, Pasquin said the decision has had an "incredibly positive" impact on the business. The salaries are now a permanent feature on the shop's website, and Pasquin believes their disclosure has contributed to a "record" number of applicants for posted positions.
The agency also continues to receive unsolicited applications, many of which mention the agency's commitment to salary transparency. She also credits the salary disclosure with playing a key role in employee retention, with only one member of the shop's 35-person team taking a job elsewhere this year.
Responding to Pasquin's LinkedIn post, people hailed the idea as an example of "radical public candour" and "bold and brave," although some did question why the disclosure does not extend beyond VP roles or mention bonuses.
Specifically speaking to that, Pasquin said that there are currently only two people above the level of VP in the company. "It simply didn't feel necessary to share that information at this point in our growth," she said. As for the second part, the company changed its approach as part of this effort, with every employee now paid a percentage of their salary as part of bonuses. That percentage is the same for every employee—it was 8% in 2022—ensuring equity across the team.
The only frustrating aspect, said Pasquin, is that more agencies didn't follow suit. "To my knowledge, no one else has shared their salary bands in response to our move." — CP
Love & Nudes, with McCann—“The Stage Zero Collection”
Chantal Carter, a Black Canadian entrepreneur, launched her company Love & Nudes in 2015 to create comfortable skin tone, wire-free bras and underwear for black women and WOC. The brand strives to accommodate all shades of skin, in a fashion industry that has long failed to include darker skin in the definition of “nude.”
This year, the brand worked with McCann and breast surgical oncologist Dr. Mojola Omole, to develop an innovation to correct another example of systemic bias by launching “The Stage Zero Collection”– the world's first breast cancer screening bras for Black women.
The bra replicates three common breast cancer symptoms, enabling the wearer to learn to recognize them with their own hands. They are “peau d'orange,” (dimpled or pitted skin texture that looks like an orange peel,) lumps (either hard like a pea, or bumpy like a kaffir lime) and discolouration (which appears rouge, brown on darker skin).
The bras debuted on World Cancer Day (Feb. 4), with a two-minute video explaining that Black women with breast cancer have a 40% higher death rate than white women. They’re underscreened, and the majority of educational materials designed to identify early stages of breast cancer, feature only white skin.
The campaign also included a petition, which successfully influenced the Ontario government to lower the age eligibility for publicly funded mammograms to 40, whereas in most Canadian provinces it is 50. The change will take effect in fall 2024, when the province expects to begin performing an additional 130,000 mammograms every year.
While there are many ways to support social causes in this industry, it’s rare to see an agency work alongside a medical professional to develop a product—need I say a tool—that has the potential to save lives.
The bras are prototypes (not for sale) for the time being, but McCann is actively scaling up production, as the collection drew attention from medical institutions who wanted to use them for demonstration in front of patients, medical students and breast cancer awareness initiatives. –EJW
White Ribbon, with Bensimon Byrne–“Short Life Stories”
“Short Life Stories,” created by Bensimon Byrne for White Ribbon, a group dedicated to ending male violence against women and girls, is a heart-wrenching short film inspired by the real life events of trans people.
The film is informed in part by a study commissioned by White Ribbon and not-for-profit Angus Reid, which found that 73% of Canadians believe transgender people face more violence and discrimination compared to cisgender people, and 80% of Canadians with a transgender loved one feel Canadians don’t understand the struggles and barriers transgender people face.
In attempting to bridge that gap in understanding, “Short Life Stories” is an incredible mechanism for empathy. The film tells the fictionalized story of Vivian, who has just started to live her life as a woman, experiencing moments of unabashed joy—such as receiving her passport with her chosen gender—with her friends and mother.
But those moments of triumph are sandwiched between instances of pain–judgment from family, internet trolls, and passersby. Her story ends in a tragedy only two years after it began, when Vivian encounters male aggression in a bar. Rather than depicting the violence, the film quickly transitions. Fragments of Vivian’s life as a woman flash by in reverse and an in memoriam line appears on screen revealing that life lasted only two years, followed by the scene of a candlelight vigil. The final fade to black prompts a call-to-action: “Help us end the rising tide of hate, violence, and transphobia.”
I’ve watched it a few times over at this point, and have cried every time. The message is simple: it can take years for a transgender person to start living their true life, and too many don’t get to see it through. At only two-and-a-half minutes in length, “Short Life Stories,” perfectly encapsulates the short-lived life of Vivian, and all who share her pain. –EJW
Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, with Sid Lee—"The Secret Menu"
From In-N-Out's "animal style" burger, to DQ's "banana split blizzard," restaurant patrons are suckers for a good secret menu.
But with entrees like Squashed Dreams Ravioli and Hazardous House Sangria, Sid Lee's "The Secret Menu," on behalf of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, presented a stark reminder of the enormous physical and mental toll Canada's food industry takes on the more than 60,000 migrant workers who flock to the country from places like Mexico and Jamaica each year.
These workers are routinely exposed to unsafe working conditions, punishing 18-hour work days, and even sexual assault. The "Secret Menu" brought the plight of this largely marginalized community to life through a QR code, 3,000 of which were secretly applied to table tops in dining rooms across Toronto and Ottawa.
Scanning the code took patrons to a website that starkly laid out the harsh realities faced by migrant workers and asked people to sign a petition asking the government to grant them permanent resident status.
By using a restaurant tactic that became commonplace during the pandemic, Migrant Workers Alliance for Change was smartly able to reach consumers when they were most likely to be receptive to its message, giving a voice to a largely ignored but vital part of the Canadian economy. — CP
Zulu Alpha Kilo–“Campaign for Survival”
The ad industry has produced a number of powerful anti-gun ad campaigns over the years, but none of them have had any impact on America's gun obsession. But ZAK’s New York and Vancouver offices embarked on a unique journey this year to produce a national campaign around the idea of taking the issue to the courts, with a human rights lawsuit at its centre.
On behalf of the Global Action on Gun Violence (GAGV), the agency produced an emotional video featuring victims of gun violence, accompanied by a full-page ad in The Washington Post, and supporting content to accompany Joaquin Oliver v USA.
Filed against the U.S. government through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the lawsuit was spearheaded by gun violence prevention lawyer and GAGV president Jonathan Lowy, and director of the George Washington University Law School’s Civil and Human Rights Clinic, Arturo Carrillo. Together they represent Manny and Patricia Oliver, a couple who lost their 17-year-old son, Joaquin, in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
The campaign also includes a call-to-action petition addressed to IACHR and the U.S., inciting signers to support the prevention of gun violence.
Undoubtedly an effort like this requires an extraordinary amount of sensitivity, and the agency didn’t shy away from the challenge. Collaborating closely with GAGV and the Olivers, ZAK sought to conceptualize the emotion by placing victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, including Joaquin’s parents, in front of the camera.
The result is a sort of collaborative, spoken-word poem about the right to live, without having that life shortened by gun violence. The video ends with a powerful super, “The U.S. government won’t hear our voices. Now they’ll hear from our lawyers.” GAGV calls it the first legal case to frame the U.S.’s gun problem as a human rights violation.
And while the power of the lawsuit is limited, as the U.S. does not accept the jurisdiction of the IACHR, I’d argue that the campaign is not contingent on a legal outcome. While interviewing the creative team about this project, it was clear that they not only committed their hearts to the creative, but truly believe that the lawsuit has merit and will be pursued to the greatest extent possible.
From a marketing perspective, “Campaign for Survival” represents an intelligent and creative attempt to reframe the debate in America—the right to bare arms cannot, and should not, supersede the basic human rights of all American citizens. – EJW
