Grow or die.

With the opening earlier this month of an office in Chicago, and aggressive plans for international expansion, that appears to be the management philosophy of Vickers & Benson, the 74-year-old grande dame of Canadian-owned agencies.

John Hayter, chairman and ceo of Toronto-based Vickers & Benson Companies, and majority shareholder of the privately owned agency, says rather than sell out to a foreign suitor – of which he says there have been many – v&b management decided a couple of years ago to spread its Canadian roots abroad.

Unlike most u.s. offices opened by Canadian agencies to service a particular client, Hayter says V&B Chicago is a full-service agency with us$25 million in business, a president, and plans to develop that market to us$50 million in three years and us$125 million in five years.

It’s a market Hayter knows well. Before joining v&b, he ran Young & Rubicam Chicago for 10 years.

Bill Flynn, the new president of V&B Chicago, is an old colleague of Hayter’s, the two having worked together in the Windy City.

To date, v&b has been responsible for the Canadian Tourism Commission’s advertising in the u.s. market for several years. It later picked up some projects for Harris Bank, an affiliate of Canadian client Bank of Montreal, and, a year ago, it was awarded the bank’s full account for the u.s. mid-west.

The opening of the Chicago office is just the latest in a series of initatives designed to strengthen the Canadian shop.

In late 1996, the agency began restructuring with the formation of new standalone units. It was about that time that v&b divested itself of its 50% stake in Genesis Media and set up its own separate media company, Maxxmedia, with media veteran David Chung as president.

It also increased its investment in interactive and direct marketing disciplines with the formation of One to One Communications as an umbrella for V&B Direct and V&B Interactive.

Most recently, v&b hired Tony Altilia away from Leo Burnett Chicago to become president of V&B Advertising. The move allows Terry Bell, as chairman of creative services, to take control of the creative product of all v&b companies.