The 3rd Edition of The HumanKind Study goes beyond conventional insights to distill the complexities and tensions keeping Canadians up at night, tackling housing, healthcare, inflation, climate, technology and more.
The name Leo Burnett is synonymous with advertising, but like the industry itself, Leo Burnett Canada is evolving, away from a traditional ad agency model and embracing a new approach.
“There were seismic shifts happening in the landscape,” says Ben Tarr, president of Leo Burnett Canada, recalling the moment the agency realized it needed to shift its strategy.
Leo Burnett’s Pizza Refill for Pizza Hut was a one-day event where customers could bring in an empty box from any competitor and Pizza Hut would replace it for free with their new Handcrafted Crust recipe. The campaign drove people into their nearest Pizza Hut, while also turning a visit to competitors into a revisit to Pizza Hut to try the new product.
“Many agencies were in-housing; PR firms were expanding their service offerings to become more ad-agency-like; and ad agencies themselves were trying to redefine where they fit in the mix. We needed to look at what our true value was to the client, and…it’s always been [our focus on the idea that] that creativity can transform human behaviour,” Tarr says.
The self-reflection led to a totally new approach to the business – that of a “creative consultancy,” Tarr says.
Created by Leo Burnett for Melanin Gamers, the new toxicity rating system is a helpful tool which provides guidance for parents and starts conversations about the toxicity faced in online gaming.
“Clients look to consultants for their strong points of view to help direct them and their business. What consultants don’t often do is execute, and that’s the difference for us. We do both, offering strategic and creative direction across a range of creative types, and then we bring it to life.”
It’s a journey that requires putting people and behaviour at the centre of how the agency thinks, an approach that they’ve called HumanKind. The approach focuses on a deep(er), more insightful understanding of the target audience and its relationship with the brand and product category.
Leo Burnett himself famously said, “what helps people, helps business,” and it’s heralded as one of the agency’s founding principles. It was also a significant motivation for the move from traditional ad agency to creative consultancy.
“The Rental” campaign for Bell leaned into the insight that horror sells. Leo Burnett created a satirical play on the power of Bell’s broadband fibre network, and the fear of going without it.
To fuel the new model, and bring those founding principles to life, the agency launched the HumanKind Study, an annual survey of over 4,000 people that investigates the challenges and problems Canadians face. It’s an exercise that not only provides insight into how brands can address some of those challenges and problems, but it also fills a gap in the marketplace.
But it had to be more than just a philosophy and an approach, adds Tahir Ahmad, Leo Burnett Canada’s chief strategy officer. “It was important to make it tangible. Being human-centric isn’t unique, but going deeper than the headlines or a single statistic and really showing the client that we understand their audience, how human beings live, what’s impacting the quality of their lives and, more importantly, what the brand can do to impact that. That’s different.”
Ultimately, as the agency increasingly leaned into its role as creative consultant, it led to a better understanding of audiences in general. “It’s so easy to scroll past ‘advertising’ right now,” says Steve Persico, co-chief creative officer. It’s not about one ad being better than another anymore. “The better we understand people, the more we realize that we are in competition with music, movies… everything that’s on your phone. So the more we can be upstream with clients and help them create true connections with people, the better off we’ll be.”
Leo Burnett asked would-be players to get out on the field (or rink, court or track) by cancelling a streaming service to reignite their passion for sports and leading a more active life.
As an example, the team points to its Kellogg’s Unsubscribe campaign in early 2023. It was built around the idea that people were finding it hard to get back to normal life after COVID shutdowns. The HumanKind research and insights led them to focus on people and purpose. Use of streaming services skyrocketed during COVID, so the idea Leo Burnett brought to the table was to get Canadians to unsubscribe to their streamers and get out of the house and be active. The idea resonated with Canadians, resulting in a 17% increase in Vector cereal sales, over 165 media stories, and over 63 million media impressions.
When a truck is a workhorse, getting dirty is part of the job, but when a truck is an off-road superpower, getting dirty is a beautiful thing. It inspired Mudern Art: Modern art made from the mud of the all-new GMC Canyon AT4X.
That said, there’s still a journey to get to that deep insight, “to find the jumping-off point from HumanKind, and how it works with client data points and the state of their business,” adds Leo Burnett Canada’s managing director, Natasha Dagenais. “And it can’t happen without strong collaboration.” The client needs to be on the same journey, applying their expertise and knowledge to the ideas Leo garners through its research and talent.
The re-focusing of the agency’s strategy is paying off. In 2024, Leo Burnett Canada is having its strongest year yet, with double-digit growth and seven new clients, including Starbucks, Pizza Hut, Canadian Pension Plan, and Loblaw Company.
CONTACT:
Richard Newman
VP development and communications
richard.newman@leoburnett.ca
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Will: Think hard. Be brave. Stand out
Media Experts: Building better connections between brands and audiences
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