End of a decade. It’s sort of a natural time to pause and reflect and put things in perspective, but for some reason it’s hard to process this last one. So much changed…so much.
Some things stayed the same. When I was first invited to help develop a new editorial approach for strategy back in 2000, the single biggest threat to the industry was consolidation of North American marketing, with large corporations swallowing Canadian operations south of the border. That’s why strategy chose to focus on covering “bold vision and brand new ideas,” showcasing Canadian marketers’ successes.
As the decade draws to a close, Canadian-led marketing organizations still need to stand up to brand-by-brand scrutiny as a smart investment. To make it more interesting, managing retail relationships and meeting increasing support expectations have made things much more challenging for manufacturers. And while speed to market has always been a factor, “faster” now has to come bundled with “bigger,” “better” and “cheaper.”
So our Marketers of the Year certainly had to deliver on the mandate of “bold vision” to make the cut in 2010. This year’s winners rallied huge organizations behind major change – from Belinda Youngs’s light-speed FreshCo launch for Sobeys and Patrick Dickinson’s orchestration of The Bay’s haute makeover, to Denise Vaillancourt’s redirecting of STM’s rank and file towards greener thinking.
On the CPG front, P&G’s Zeeshan Shams’s Pampers work is the poster case for the value of on-the-ground marketing vision, with a killer customer-unique retail strategy, regional-specific consumer programs, and made-in-Canada claims that were picked up as best in class.
Meanwhile, the overall winner, TD’s Dominic Mercuri, continued to break new ground to reach consumers, such as comfy green chair interstitials starring creatives from prime-time hits.
Congrats to all the 2010 Marketers of the Year!
And since it’s the end of a decade, we also looked back to see what/who stood out the most over the last 10 years. After the list was compiled, debated and whittled down to a final four, we were left with a person, an agency and two brands – one global and one homegrown.
Our person of the decade, Hugh Dow, chairman of Mediabrands Canada, is not only an architect of the agency-parented stand-alone media shop in Canada, he was a driving force for improving Canada’s metrics. Dow always quickly jumped in to take advantage of new opportunities, from the first convergence deals at the start of the decade, to the global remit he took on towards the end of his career, which wraps at the end of the decade.
A decade of being at the top of creative award tallies, expansion at home and abroad, and a lot of long-running campaigns for a lot of long-standing clients landed Taxi at the top of our Agency of the Decade list. And the recent acquisition by WPP proves that it made Sir Martin’s list too.
Our homegrown brand of the decade is Tim Hortons. The savvy marketing strategy behind this now-ubiquitous QSR is to stay homespun and cozy for the double-double crowd – with a lot of community-facing programs like Timbits Sports and Camp Day, while welcoming new fans via JWT’s heartwarming-story-vertising. A fierce schedule of innovation on the menu front has seen the former donut destination become an urban contender on the coffee-to-lunch front.
Our final brand of the decade embraced a global platform and stole headlines around the world for Canada’s contributions. Canada not only brought “Evolution” to Dove’s Real Beauty campaign (earning two Grand Prix at Cannes and causing widespread “viral” lust), the team at Unilever, Ogilvy and former media agency PHD concocted a play, a book and, with longtime partner Capital C, was invited into bedrooms across the country with the Sleepover for Self-Esteem.
Nice going, eh.
Once again I’ve run out of space due to the other constant: too many brilliant things going on to mention them all.

Happy new decade, mm
Mary Maddever, exec editor, strategy, Media in Canada and stimulant