The agency worked with Simu Liu on PR to drive donations for the 29th McHappy Day.
The phrase “client first” is something many agencies tout, but for Toronto-based Weber Shandwick, it’s the fuel for the agency’s transformation from PR shop to a strategic communications agency.
“We’re all about our relationships,” says president and CEO Greg Power. “The focus is on organic growth with current clients. That’s our first priority – build success for the clients we serve and be selective about new business.”
The focus entails new data and insights products and a dedication to staying ahead of what marketers want, before they want it. The strategy has three pillars, Power explains.
The first: “Collaboration: Working really well together as colleagues.” The second? “Clients first: Be in the work, and make a difference.” And the third is less an idea and more a requisite of today’s marketing landscape: “Innovate: Keep changing and evolving.”
Love & Nudes, an inclusive lingerie brand by and for women of colour, created The Stage Zero Collection – the world’s first breast cancer self-examining tool that helps Black women identify the signs of breast cancer on darker skin tone.
Power says the agency’s approach is built on the concept of “value-based communities,” with teams built around four areas of “craft”, “client experience, insights, content and integrated media.”
This future-proofs the organization by ensuring it stays relevant and adds value by offering ever-evolving services and expertise. It also creates sustainable career paths, helping the agency to recruit and keep talent.
Two of the four tones created for The Stage Zero Collection on display at launch in front of Shop20, Scarborough Town Centre, on World Cancer Day, during Black History Month.
To fuel organic growth for its integrated offering, Power says it became important to lean into areas where the agency is super-qualified to add value. To that end, Weber Shandwick created the Un/Predictions Report, an annual study first published in 2023. It provides analysis and insight into “megatrends” in policy, technology, media and culture, with the goal of providing CEOs with signposts to chart their brands’ paths forward.
“Today’s business leaders are contending with a global landscape that is noisier and more complex than ever.
What may appear as a small business decision can inspire, enflame, and polarize, shifting a progressive idea into a political minefield,” he says. “Some brands have had missteps – they’ve become too political. But what’s the right balance?”
ESG is now a tainted term but the issues it was created to address remain and so does the responsibility to act on them to meet expectations in a stakeholder economy.
Un/Predictions report is designed to give execs insight into the balancing act for their corporate strategies and ESG-related goals. Ultimately, it’s designed as a playbook for Weber Shandwick’s clients.
As a result, the agency is in a position to look at trends from a global perspective, he says, and identify ways for brands to tap into those conversations, or anticipate how they can affect decision-making.
Power calls out the sustainability-related work the agency has done for the Coca-Cola Company in Canada. In October 2023, the brand announced a transition to 100% recycled plastic (rPET) for its 500-mL sparkling beverage bottles (excluding caps and labels) Weber Shandwick created the “Replay Arcade,” a popup vintage arcade in downtown Toronto showcasing the multiple lives of rPET plastic bottles through gameplay.
The key was to address the skepticism many Canadians hold when it comes to environmental claims by brands while providing information to consumers in an engaging, fun way that was easy to understand.
But campaigns like the “Replay Arcade” are really only possible when you work closely with the brand, Power says.
The Replay Arcade, presented by The Coca-Cola Company celebrated the company’s transition to 100% recycled plastic (rPET) bottles (excluding caps and labels) across their entire 500ml sparkling beverage portfolio in Canada and invited guests to recycle an empty plastic beverage bottle in exchange for arcade tokens and a Coca-Cola beverage in a 100% rPET bottle.
This kind of work is based on understanding The Coca-Cola Company’s global sustainability commitments related to the Canadian market, and how we can tell a compelling story about their local impact.
“This is a relationship-driven business, and the closer you stay to your client, the more you understand their business. That puts you in a strong position to see what they need,” he explains.
That focus is key to the agency’s organic growth and long-term roster. “McDonald’s has been a client for 35 years,” Power says. “Royal Bank of Canada has been a client for 13 years. General Motors for 13 years. Air Canada, seven years. Those are the things that matter; trust, commitment and being highly responsive when the need is greatest.”
Which in turn, helps the agency to position itself to meet future brand needs. “When you’re additive, when you perform, you get a seat at the table and a voice in where the client is going.”
CONTACT:
Greg Power
President and CEO, Weber Shandwick Canada
gpower@webershandwick.com
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