The team at Dentsu Creative accepts their awards at the 2023 Strategy Awards gala in Toronto.

For the second year in a row, the Strategy Awards jury has awarded not one, but two Grand Prix honours, with Dentsu Creative winning the Grand Prix and Angry Butterfly winning the Public Service Grand Prix.

The Strategy Awards celebrates the best marketing and advertising strategy work in Canada, recognizing campaigns that solved specific problems, recognizing the strategy shifts that positioned brands in a new light. The awards were presented at a gala in Toronto on Tuesday evening, following this year’s CMO Forum conference.

Dentsu Creative won the Grand Prix for “F*cking Old,” a campaign for condom brand Jems. To raise awareness for the challenger brand, the campaign spoke to seniors, who are not typically targeted by condom ads even though they continue to have sex – and a lot of it is unprotected, as evidenced by skyrocketing rates of STIs among older people. To help keep this target safe, Dentsu and Jems created a box of hard candies, each one wrapped with a different conversation starter about things like the importance of protection and regular STI testing. In particular, the candies were meant to get important health information to an older generation from a source they value most: their grandkids.

The campaign also won Golds in the Challenger Strategy and Niche Strategy categories. Dentsu won two more Golds, in Data Strategy and Tech Strategy, for its “Inflation Cookbook” campaign for Skip Express Lane, bringing its total to four, the most of any agency at the show.

The Public Service Grand Prix went to Angry Butterfly (pictured, left) for “Bill it to Bezos,” a campaign for the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre. Capitalizing on the fact that the target audience was getting tired of the rich getting richer, the campaign encouraged Amazon Prime members to donate their often-unused free Twitch credits to the community centre, positioning it as a way to stick it to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The campaign also won a Gold in the Cause/Public Service category.

Zulu Alpha Kilo was a multi-Gold winner, picking up two for Pizza Pizza’s “Fixed Rate Pizza” and one for Booking.com’s “Booking is Half the Fun.” Edelman won a pair of Gold for Dove’s “#KeepTheGrey.”

Anomaly, Courage, Edelman, FCB Canada, Rethink and Wunder also won one Gold each. FCB had the most awards overall on the night, adding three Silver and six Bronze wins.

The full list of winners can be found on the Strategy Awards website.

Also recognized at the awards was Michael Downey, the soon-to-retire CEO of Tennis Canada and recipient of this year’s ACA Gold Medal. Over Downey’s 15 year tenure at the head of the organization, the profile of tennis in Canada has risen dramatically, thanks in part to investments in training programs that have led to a new crop of successful professional players. Downey also held key marketing roles at Labatt, Molson and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.