This article was originally published in the Fall issue of Strategy Magazine

AGENCY | SILVER

What’s in a name? For Courage, it’s an enticement; a strategic play to attract the type of clients who have the bravery to push the envelope. Who aren’t afraid to host a burial for their unloved deep-fried potato chips. Who will publish a book about bowel movements during child birth. Who will troll NBA players on massive billboards. Who will… well, you get the point.

Courage CSO Tom Kenny took the stage with one of those brave clients, Tracey Cooke of Nestle, during strategy’s CMO Forum in October. The agency-client duo shared case after case, companies that understand the importance of “identifying the things that make a brand special” – as well as those that don’t. Their presentation pointed to studies that show 75% of brands could disappear and people wouldn’t care. And, even more depressing, only 5% of brands are considered unique by consumers.

Few brands, Kenny said, are able to identify their unique qualities, nor are they able to translate them into “genuinely distinctive advertising.” And that, in a nutshell, is what Courage set itself up to achieve. “Whether it’s a new brand or a legacy brand, I think the thing we do really, really well is make brands relevant,” Joel Holtby, co-founder and co-CCO tells strategy, adding that the agency does this by tapping into cultural conversations happening around them.

Within its two-year existence, Courage helped legacy brands – KitKat and KFC – known for catchy taglines – “Have a Break” and “Finger Lickin’ Good” – revive those long-standing platforms with creative punches that not only had an effect on consumers, but also the industry at wide: KitKat’s “Have AI Break” picked up a Silver Lion at Cannes this year. Meanwhile, KFC’s “Finger Lickin’ Open Endorsement,” a mock sponsorship that saw The Colonel step out of the kitchen and onto the court, picked up a Bronze.

Last year, when KFC tapped Courage for a made-in-Canada platform, “Not Everybody’s Happy,” it was the QSR’s first major brand push in years as it entered a “large transformational journey,” says co-founder and co-CCO Dhaval Bhatt. The agency’s work has even been getting the attention of the restaurant’s U.S. team, which, in a recent meeting, called out KFC Canada for being among the most popular when it comes to Gen Z.

As for KitKat, Bhatt says the challenge has been to revive the Nestle brand, which is iconic in its own right but comes with tagline coined in the late ’50s that requires creative thinking to connect it to contemporary culture. Enter AI. Informed by a Google DeepMind study on Large Language Model-based AIs, the campaign demonstrated how prompting “a breather” before any Gen AI request improves the accuracy of the response.

Holtby says part of what enables the agency to tap into cultural connectivity is the diversity of its people, which gives the work not just a Canadian, but global flair. The shop’s success, he believes, also boils down to something as simple as enjoying the work. “The challenge is fun,” Holtby says. “The way to craft the work is fun. Finding enjoyment in every aspect of it is what makes you want to constantly come back to the table and beat the thing that we just did.”

Besides, the duo says not having larger agency bureaucracy and an institutionalized structure helps it focus on the work, which, in turn, helps attract talent and ward off turnover.

Bhatt likens success in the ad business to surfing. The waves come in, you get on the board and try to catch a good one; and then stay on top as long as you can. Extending the water metaphor, Bhatt adds, “We’re sharks, and doing great work is our movement. And if we stop doing that, we die.”

New Business
CIBC (U.S.), KitKat, Taco Bell, Skip, Boost, CoffeeMate, Cracker Barrel, San Pellegrino, Skyscanner, Turtles

Office
Toronto

Staff
80

Cases – Agency

Courage created “190 Goals For Goals” for CIBC to celebrate soccer icon Christine Sinclair’s retirement by honouring her career goal total. At her final game, 190 young female players wore her jersey, emblazoned with their own personal goals. The campaign garnered 264 million impressions and raised $190,000 for Sinclair’s foundation.

For KFC’s “Fry Funeral,” the agency embraced the QSR’s reputation for sub-par fries by hosting a live-streamed funeral for them. The campaign, featuring a coffin and hearse tour, generated 3.7 billion impressions and boosted same-store sales by 8.6%.

KitKat’s “Have AI Break” revitalized the confectionary brand’s iconic “Have a Break” tagline by integrating Gen AI tools, showing how prompting AI to “take a break” improved the tech’s response accuracy. The campaign garnered 80 million organic impressions and reignited KitKat’s relevance with younger audiences.

North York General Hospital’s “What No One Tells You When You’re Expecting” included a book that shared untold pregnancy truths. Debuting as Amazon’s number-one bestseller in Pregnancy & Childbirth, it generated 15.3K new donor leads and significant media attention.

For Skyscanner’s “Trollboards” campaign, Courage leveraged the NBA “1, 2, 3 Cancun” meme to boost brand awareness during the 2024 playoffs. By placing billboards trolling eliminated teams, the campaign garnered over one billion media impressions.