BTI Brand Innovations, based in Mississauga, Ontario, celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. This milestone marks the agency’s journey from a digital-focused agency to one focused on full-service marketing. 

Launched as Byte This in 1999, the agency quickly established itself, focusing initially on digital marketing. Founder and chief creative officer Parveen Dhupar (pictured above) explains that the rebranding to BTI Brand Innovations gave current and potential clients a better glimpse into the wider range of marketing services the agency offered. 

“The name Byte This instantly gave us credibility, and after 10 years, we found our niche was in discovering innovations,” Dhupar says of BTI’s start. “We then rebranded to what we were great at – finding brand innovations. Hence, we became BTI Brand Innovations Inc.”

Five years ago, BTI expanded by adding a sales agency arm. This arm combines marketing expertise with sales strategy to create a competitive edge.

The agency’s unwavering focus on client relationships has remained a cornerstone of its philosophy. BTI represents one client per product category, looking to foster deep partnerships. “When we work across different sectors, we’re exposed to various challenges and innovations that spark creative solutions,” Dhupar says. “This helps us avoid the repetition of serving the same audience repeatedly. Instead, we bring fresh, cross-industry insights that differentiate our clients from their competitors.”

Client partner groups: tailored approaches for diverse needs

The agency categorizes its client partners into medium to large enterprises, startups and scaleups, and not-for-profits. 

For larger brands, the goal is leadership retention, while startups benefit from BTI’s experience in building brands from the ground up. The agency’s commitment to not-for-profits, meanwhile, reflects its values and focus on community impact.

One success was BTI’s national roadshows for Whirlpool, aimed at enhancing the credibility of their new product line acquired from Maytag. BTI created immersive events to highlight the latest products and innovations to educate retail sales associates. Dhupar says the proof of the campaigns’ impact came from the immediate sales lift seen after each roadshow, with Whirlpool brands staying top of mind with sales associates. They also followed each event with detailed post-event surveys, where they consistently earned 96% satisfaction ratings. 

Mark Williams, vice president of sales at Whirlpool Canada, says the trust between BTI and Whirlpool was a cornerstone in the roadshow’s evolution and allowed it to become more creative, efficient and adaptable. He adds that one of the primary metrics for the brand was the number of attendees, and audience numbers exceeded expectations year after year. 

“Over the years, our Roadshow became an industry best,” Williams says. “Retail sales associates would book vacation time to avoid missing our roadshow! It created excitement and confidence for our brands and products.”  

Canada Beef has undertaken numerous projects and campaigns with BTI, working with the agency since 2005 in Canada and internationally. Most recently that has included introducing multilingual dynamic QR codes. “Given the length of time we have been working with BTI there is a shared understanding of our objectives and initiatives that is difficult to replicate with other agencies,” Mark Klassen, executive vice president at Canada Beef. “This shared experience adds greater efficiency to our efforts and helps us respond quickly to changes in the marketplace.” Klassen says the work with BTI has contributed to the continued demand for Canada Beef. 

Trusting the agency to create a campaign that would drive real impact was also key to the mental health campaign BTI developed for Ontario-based Indus Community Services. The organization serves a multicultural audience and focuses on building resilient and healthy communities. 

The campaign needed to effectively engage South Asian community members and understand the cultural nuances and stigma associated with mental health in the community. South Asians were found to have the lowest rates of seeking treatment for depression, according to BTI research into the issue citing the 2016 Census of Population. Several factors contribute to this: language barriers, a deep-seated fear of shame or judgment within the community, and perceived racism or a lack of culturally sensitive services from healthcare providers. Mental health is often seen through a lens of silence and endurance, where seeking help may be viewed as a sign of weakness, and discussing personal struggles can feel taboo.

With these notes in mind, BTI developed a six-month campaign to promote Indus’s culturally relevant and accessible mental wellness programs, known as Boost Wellness. The campaign included targeted social media outreach, radio ads and interviews to connect with the local ethnic audience. 

Gurpreet Malhotra, CEO of Indus Community Services, says BTI’s effective use of short form videos and social media that encouraged engagement and self referral in the campaign led to effectively reaching the targeted groups.

Creating purpose beyond marketing 

Work like the campaign for Indus Community Services taps into Dhupar and the BTI team’s passion for giving back to the communities they work in.

Another example of this is the agency’s VOICE Grant Program. VOICE provides ten selected entrepreneurs with 50% of eligible costs, ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 worth of marketing strategy and branding services to allow entrepreneurs from underrepresented communities to thrive.Reflecting on 25 years of growth, Dhupar credits BTI’s success to its holistic commitment to every client.

“As BTI celebrates its milestone anniversary, it continues to embrace its mission while making a meaningful difference in the community,” he says. “We will continue to grow by partnering with businesses that want an agency that treats their business as if it were their own. Our mission is to ensure that we provide innovative solutions, treating each client’s success as our own while staying agile and adaptable to the ever-changing landscape.”

For more information on BTI and how you can work with them visit https://btibrandinnovations.com/

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