Rain created the “Get Ready” platform for Centennial College, highlighting how the school can help imbue valuable life skills, particularly in the areas of leadership and communication. A fully integrated campaign featuring Centennial students launched in the fall across broadcast, OOH, radio, digital and social.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that an agency named Rain would have experienced so much organic growth this year – after evolving its working model to incorporate talent from coast to coast and expanding its core advertising specialty to meet brand demand.
Part of the growth at this full-service, Toronto-headquartered agency that launched in 2010 includes additions at the top. This past year saw the agency expand its leadership team as CEO John Yorke and chief strategy officer Laura Davis-Saville welcomed into the fold new MD Erin Wilbur and CCO Marta Hooper.
Wilbur came on board with a mandate to reimagine the agency for a post-pandemic world and rethink how the team is structured. “We’ve been building a smarter way of working, combining the best of a traditional advertising communication agency with a contemporary outlook on how we do it,” she says.
In 2019, Rain was awarded the social media contract for the core tool brands in Stanley Black & Decker’s portfolio, including DeWalt, Craftsman and Irwin. This year, the agency became the social media AOR for Dewalt North America, and has already seen a bump in reach and engagement.
Rain’s retooling has included growing its design and branding focus – be it for identity systems or other brand work. New clients in that category include Downtown AutoGroup, GWL Realty Advisors and Wolfpack Packaging. It’s also working on a rebrand of its own, which will roll out later this year.
Rain designed the packaging for Distillerie Noroi’s Canada 72 Dry Gin to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Summit Series and “Canada’s Team of the Century.”
The goal is to be able to collaborate closely with the client’s marketing team, wherever they happen to be, and be flexible enough to offer whatever help is needed. “We can action things for our clients quickly and surround the problem with the right people,” says Wilbur.
Accomplishing this is a decentralized team of about 40; beyond offices in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver, Rain is now represented in Moncton, Thunder Bay and the Sunshine Coast. “A lot of our people are like Swiss army knives – they can do multiple jobs,” she says. “We attract people who want to be part of a small team in which they play a role across the board.”
Adds Hooper, “We’re no longer bound by this structural sandbox where you had a team working in an office. This new shift and mindset of working remotely has opened up our perspective. The quality obviously has to be of a certain level and we set that bar pretty high – but we’re finding new ways to collaborate.”
Brands are looking for a broader suite of solutions from Rain’s teams, which they are now set up to deliver both geographically and skillset wise. Dewalt Canada expanded the scope of its relationship with Rain, and the agency has become the power-tool maker’s social media AOR for Dewalt North America. Rain also took on rebranding efforts for Centennial College, along with new branding and campaigns for Nova Scotia-based telco Eastlink.
Eastlink approached Rain to help better position the cable provider and telco to consumers. Rain spearheaded creative development of Eastlink’s holiday campaign, which centred on the promise of “Uncomplicating Your Holidays,” leveraging a bold design aesthetic to cut through the clutter of holiday promotions.
While the “how” may have evolved, the Rain philosophy remains the same.
“Everything we do serves growth. It’s the impetus and ethos behind our name, and we’re working with our clients to help them achieve it to an unprecedented degree,” Davis-Saville explains.
To help raise the brand profile of baby gear producer Cybex as a new category entrant in Canada, Rain created “A Star for Mom” – a Michelin dining experience for new mothers that catered to their needs.
Rain itself has flourished this year with a total of 11 new clients onboarded, including luxury baby gear producer Cybex. It also won new government campaigns for Parks Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada.
For Cybex – a new category entrant in Canada – Rain seized on the media momentum around Toronto’s newly minted Michelin star restaurants, creating “A Star for Mom,” which invited new mothers to Alo restaurant for an exclusive event catering to their needs, including stroller parking and nursing space.
Wilbur feels the steps the agency has taken position it to help brands take their own next step.
“We’ve been working with a lot of challenger brands with that growth mindset that have come to rely on us as an extension,” she says. “We have that ability because we’re small and have that entrepreneurial spirit – as well as that scrappy, humble mentality you get from a smaller team. That’s valuable to a lot of clients.”
CONTACT:
Erin Wilbur
Managing director
erin@therainagency.com
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