Creative veteran and digital marketing trailblazer Fransi Weinstein is this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner.

Weinstein, co-founder and chief creative officer of Toronto-based direct and digital marketing shop Tattoo represents ‘a wonderful connection between the history of the discipline of direct marketing and what has emerged as an integrated marketing world,’ according to Canadian Marketing Association president and CEO John Gustavson.

With more than 20 years’ experience working in the creative departments of some of Canada’s top general advertising, public relations and direct marketing agencies, Weinstein and the teams that have worked under her have won more than 100 domestic and international awards, including several RSVPs.

Having started her career at Young & Rubicam in Montreal, followed by stints at Grey Advertising and J. Walter Thompson, Weinstein eventually moved to Toronto to take a job at Ogilvy & Mather Direct, an agency where she perfected her creative skills in direct marketing. After more than 10 years at O&MD, she moved to BBDO Response in 1996 to take on the position of senior vice-president, creative director.

In addition to her stellar record as an award-winning creative director, Weinstein has contributed significantly to the industry through her involvement in the Canadian Marketing Association (she has sat on several councils and task forces, as well as chaired the RSVP judging committee), writing a regular column on direct marketing for Strategy magazine, and sitting on the advisory board of the advertising copywriting program at Humber College in Toronto.

Gustavson praises Weinstein as the kind of person who ‘will not stop learning and growing, taking risks, and bringing the whole thing together.

‘She’s very much deserving a lifetime achievement award,’ he says. ‘She has mentored so many people, and her passion for what she does in undeniable… She has taken so many people and shared with them and infected them with her enthusiasm.’