Anomaly Toronto had added to its talent pool and strengthened its connection to the Quebec market by striking a partnership with Montreal’s Mith Media.

Mith Media is run by lifestyle, fashion and travel blogger Marcus Troy and his twin brother, photographer Naskademini. Between the two of them, the Troy brothers have worked with brands including Reebok, Heineken, Bentley, Cadillac, Nike, Levi’s, JBL and Leica – among many others – aiming to help them craft authentic brand experiences. Anomaly will help the Troys as they look to expand their business, while Anomaly will be able to call on their talent and expertise when it will be helpful for its own client base.

“More than anything, it’s recognition of their talent,” says Franke Rodriguez, CEO of Anomaly in Toronto and New York. “They are running a successful business already, but like any entrepreneur, they saw benefit from partnering with a company like us. As a result, we have access to their unique skill sets whenever a brief comes across our desk and it makes sense to bring in someone like Marcus or Naskademini and work with them.”

Rodriguez says he was first pointed to Marcus Troy’s work by a friend a few weeks after coming to Toronto launch Anomaly here in 2012, and refers to him as “one of the genuine pioneers in digital media.”

“Nowadays it’s hard to talk about an integrated campaign without an influencer strategy, and he was blogging and doing influencer pieces over a decade ago, when it was in its infancy and we didn’t even have a word for it,” Rodriguez says. “He genuinely understands that space and how to leverage it effectively. When you add in someone like Naskademini, who is a world class photographer that is able to capture and shoot things beautifully, it expands our talent pool considerably.”

Rodriguez says he would have been interested in partnering with Mith regardless of where they were based, but calls it a “happy coincidence” that they were based in Montreal, as Anomaly established its Anomaly Quebec team last year.

Anomaly built its full-service creative, digital and social team by seeking out talent from Quebec – such as Jack Latulippe, previously of Les Evades, Sid Lee and Lg2, who is the team’s creative director – and bringing them to Toronto to work out of the agency’s office in the city. Rodriguez says that while French Canada has always been important, over the last year the agency identified greater opportunities in the market, in particular with clients like Spotify, Bud Light and some Hershey brands.

While some Toronto-based agencies have partnered with established Montreal agencies in the past to serve clients needs in French Canada, Rodriguez says that kind of approach would have been hard for Anomaly to do, given the kind of approach it takes to its work, and cites the “Last Silo” approach Anomaly has been taking in the U.S. over the last 18 months towards Hispanic marketing as a guide for having Anomaly Quebec work in Toronto. The thinking in the U.S. was that – if you are going to speak to all of America – the Spanish-speaking and Hispanic markets needs to be thought of sooner in the development process, which means bringing that work in-house.

“If our clients, the core team and strategic leadership team are all based in Toronto and having those conversations around the big idea and strategic objective there, and then throwing that over the wall to Montreal and telling them to take it and make it French, that was too many steps removed,” he says. “We wanted to make sure the people responsible for delivering the level of quality and expertise we’ve come to expect from Anomaly were part of the conversation as it was happening, at the table with senior clients, from the outset.”