The Canadian offices of multinational agencies are targeting international account assignments from clients within their agency networks to increase their business and showcase their creative talents to the world.

The chance to land these plum assignments is the result of the growing trend within multinational agencies to award international brand assignments, or at least lead creative-agency status, to specific agencies.

A number of Canadian shops have received that designation and are now making significant contributions to global brands.

Tony Miller, chairman and chief executive officer of MacLaren McCann, says this is a smart way of doing business, but adds it can only work if the client encourages and rewards the free and open exchange of strategic brand and creative thinking in the system.

Miller says Toronto is as good a place as London or New York to export intellect from, but adds it is important to make sure the network sees the contributions that can be made from here and draws upon that talent.

For MacLaren, the strategy to become a centre of excellence was executed deliberately.

‘You can’t just run around and try to impact a wide variety of categories,’ Miller says.

‘You have to be very specific where you really think you can make a difference,’ he says.

‘It is much better to use your talent cost-effectively, to adapt and reconstruct international ideas relevant to your marketplace, than attempting to reinvent the wheel all the time.

Miller says agencies can then free up their creative talent to work on Canadian accounts and to devote more time to international business.

Miller says MacLaren is becoming increasingly influential with clients such as Unilever, Nestle and Coca-Cola, noting some of the agency’s advertising for Coke is being used in more than 20 countries.

He also identifies the automotive, brewing and financial services categories as areas in which the Canadian agency can make a contribution to McLaren’s global business.

According to Brian Fetherstonhaugh, president of Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto, fully 20% of its creative output is done for international clients.

Fetherstonhaugh says every week the agency finds itself working on at least one assignment for the international agency network.

He says o&m as a network views its various agencies as being linked by metaphorical ‘long hallways,’ which facilitate the sharing of creative resources across international borders.

He says the ultimate goal of the strategy is to enable clients to get the best creative resources for specific assignments.

‘We have really taken advantage of [long hallways] and have strongly positioned ourselves to be one of the first stops for our key international businesses such as American Express, ibm, Duracell, and Lever Bros.,’ Fetherstonhaugh says.

Some of the agency’s work being used globally includes creative for the American Express Membership Rewards program and for Duracell. (O&M, Toronto’s ‘Toys’ campaign has run in five countries.)

For Kentucky Fried Chicken, the Toronto office created a 30-second television spot that is one of three recently launched in 15 markets around the world.

The ‘Dove Litmus Test’ advertising for Lever has run in 17 countries, and the Toronto office is working on some u.s. Dove assignments.

ibm, one of the more prominent clients to encourage the sharing of ideas around the world, has also used some of O&M, Toronto’s work internationally – for its services and industries division and several direct marketing programs for computer systems.

Fetherstonhaugh says the Toronto agency has also become a worldwide centre of excellence for loyalty marketing and rewards programs, as well as response marketing, or 1-800 television, through its O&M Direct division.

Leo Burnett also encourages global participation of its agencies through its ‘country of excellence’ strategy.

Jim McKenzie, president and chief executive officer of Leo Burnett in Toronto, says the key benefit to the global system is that if agencies in countries around the world are developing advertising ideas for a brand, the client will have a much richer pool of ideas from which to draw on.

McKenzie says the Toronto agency, which was named agency of the year in the Leo Burnett network last year, is seen as a leading-edge creative agency on most of its multinational business.

He calls the agency’s Fruit of the Loom campaign ‘a world-class campaign,’ noting he expects it to win some major international awards.

The campaign has already been picked up in the u.s. and will likely run in a number of other countries.

‘We’re looked to for some problem-solving, or, at the very least, to see if there’s some creative sparks that the rest of the world can use,’ says McKenzie, citing Kellogg as an example.

‘We’ve always been seen as one of the best cereal agencies in the Leo Burnett world,’ he says, pointing out the agency’s ‘Christmas Corn’ ad for Kellogg, in which children leave a bowl of Corn Flakes out for Santa, has run in at least 15 countries around the world.’

BBDO Canada has taken a different approach than some of the other agencies and is focusing its new business development on North American rather than international lines.

Peter Stringham, president and ceo of bbdo, says with free trade, there is no reason Toronto cannot be as competitive as New York, Los Angeles or Chicago.

Stringham says, ‘one of the things we’re trying to do is establish our competency with our own existing multinational clients,’ adding the agency would like to be viewed as a North American resource.

‘We’ve had some success doing that, and a huge opportunity fell into our lap through [Molson] Red Dog,’] he says.

‘We now do that work and other work for Miller, which has built into quite a substantial account for us.’

From its Vancouver office, bbdo is doing work for Weight Watchers in the U.S. Northwest and will soon be announcing some additional u.s. business to be handled out of Toronto.

BBDO, Toronto’s interactive group has been used as a resource by members of the North American agency network, and it is doing work for BBDO, Chicago’s Miller and Wrigley accounts and for a client out of the New York office.

Stringham says bbdo in Toronto has also targeted some non-conflicting categories south of the border, explaining the agency is pursuing the business on its own and, in some cases, with sister agencies in the u.s. PS