M5 Marketing has expanded its physical footprint with new office space and refreshed its brand as part of a larger plan to bridge the company’s 40-year history with its designs and ambitions for the future.

The company, which last fall named a new ECD amid a wave of growth, had been looking “to solidify some of the changes and innovation we had been making at the organization,” says Heather Dalton, a partner with M5. The agency came under the ownership of its new partnership group – comprised of Dalton, Susan Clarke, Chris MacInnes and Rick Rouah – five years ago, and the group have been making considerable changes – both in terms of practices and physical space.

“We’ve expanded our footprint to encompass five offices across Atlantic Canada,” Dalton tells strategy – including a new space in St. John’s that opened earlier this month.

The agency’s newest office, like its other spaces, has been designed with the post-pandemic workplace in mind. Gone are the siloed offices of old, replaced instead with lots of open concept space and connectivity technologies to allow teams in different regions to collaborate more effectively, says Dalton.  That’s important because the agency’s employees are spread out across those five offices – it also has locations in Moncton, Saint John, Charlottetown and Halifax – and it even has some employees working from across the country on a fully remote basis. Local employees work on a hybrid model.

Alongside its expanding footprint, M5 has been growing its teams and currently has a headcount of 150 employees. In particular, Dalton says, M5 has grown its media team as it incorporates “full, in-house media capabilities” led by Karla Hayward, its VP of insights and innovation. “She’s been spearheading a transformation of our social media and influencer operations,” she adds.

In addition, the agency has been enhancing its tech capabilities under the guidance of Mark Pike, its VP of interactive and technology.

“Everything today is video-oriented, so one of the biggest changes we’ve been making in staffing is beefing up our capability to provide video for our clients and making sure it’s central to everything we produce for them,” notes Dalton. “We have team members in Newfoundland and Halifax who have really enhanced that growth.”

In addition to expanding its footprint and growing its teams, M5 has also developed new practices and policies for its employees. Chief among these, and most reflected in its new brand philosophy, is what the company calls a “curiosity credit” – a small monetary credit available to employees to explore new passions and ideas outside of the office.

“It gives them new opportunities outside of work to get their brain and body going and get them thinking a little bit differently,” explains Dalton. “At the heart of our brand positioning is curiosity. We feel that is what we do different, and that’s the point that has driven our success. We really get in and try to solve problems and in order to do that we need to have employees and processes that foster problem solving and using creative solutions.”

The changes at the agency have been ongoing since the new ownership group took control of the business. The new owners have collectively been with the business for several decades, with Dalton herself having worked at M5 for more than 25 years. “Part of our drive to become partners was to start this next chapter, this transformation,” she explains. “We’ve been calling this the next phase of M5. If we don’t change and innovate and keep the fire in our bellies, we won’t be able to do that for clients either. That is grounding everything we do.”