Lg2 names Jason Chaney VP strategy

Montreal-based Lg2 has hired Jason Chaney as its new VP of strategy. The agency brings in Chaney – best known as the architect of the internationally recognized “Your Questions” McDonald’s Canada campaign at DDB Canada – as it attempts to win more business outside of Quebec and lays plans to open a Toronto office.

“I honestly can’t tell you when we’ll be opening shop in Toronto, but for sure this is in our plans,” says Mathieu Roy, VP managing director, Lg2. “We’re investing in brains and talent before we even worry about the location.”

Chaney’s mandate is to boost Lg2’s profile and win more work in the rest of Canada, which currently makes up about  a third of the agency’s business, including nationwide work for Bell and Desjardins. Earlier this summer, Lg2 hired Toronto-native Stuart Macmillan as a creative director to assist in this process. He previously worked at agencies in Europe and most recently in Montreal as a creative director with Palm+Havas.

“We’re already experiencing interesting growth on a national scale,” says Roy. “Jason has the perfect CV to help accelerate that process.”

Roy says the agency has not set a date for opening the new office, but that Chaney would be involved in the undertaking. He added that Lg2 will now start searching for a creative director to work in the proposed Toronto office.

Chaney grew up in Calgary and has been working at agencies in Toronto for the past 10 years. He was previously a VP of strategy at Tribal DDB. Over the next year he will work with Anne-Marie Leclair, partner and vice-president at Lg2, in leading a strategy group of about 13 people in Montreal (about 10% of the agency’s staff), which he says is quite large compared with many agencies in Toronto. So far he has helped work on a successful pitch for Country Style, an account whose work will be specific to the Ontario market.

“Lg2 is doing some exceptional work and I love what’s happening from a creative standpoint,” says Chaney. “There’s some great work coming out of the Montreal market in general that I believe translates well into a new era of consumer communications.”

Chaney has been taking intensive French classes since arriving in Montreal and says he has sat in on some meetings in French and tries to correspond with colleagues in French as much as possible. He hopes that immersion in French-speaking Canada will provide some insight on both similarities and differences between the two languages. “I’d like to identify opportunities to create more cohesive campaigns across Canada,” he says. “I think it’s an opportunity to find some commonalities and leverage that to create some great work for all of the country.”