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

By Will Novosedlik

From dotting the streets of Toronto with frozen mannequins for Coors Light to curating a gallery of enlarged – though elegantly photographed – buttholes for Tushy, Citizen Relations is more than blurring the line between traditional PR and creative advertising. It’s erasing it.

Much of the agency’s creative strength comes down to CCO Josh Budd, who was hired three years ago to build Citizen’s advertising capabilities. “It was a struggle at first to attract good talent because, at the time, Citizen didn’t have much of a creative portfolio. But Josh has really proven himself and brought our reputation along with him,” says CEO Nick Cowling.

And now Citizen Relations has a couple Cannes Lions to prove it – the agency picked up two Bronze wins this year for “Cheetle in Cheadle” and was also shortlisted for #Elimin8Hate’s “Reclaim My Name” and Duracell’s “Buy My Own Batteries.”

Hiring Budd was part of the agency’s deliberate shift from being seen as PR specialists to more of a multidisciplinary shop. The evolution began back in 2014 when Cowling added strategic planning to the toolbox. And while PR firms moving into creative agency territory is not new, Cowling insists that Citizen has no interest in competing with traditional advertising agencies. “When we add a new capability, it’s not about mowing creative agencies’ lawns. We just want to enrich and improve our own core offering.”

For example, Citizen has been experimenting with tools that bring together earned media and search in an effort to ensure that everything is performance-driven, at some level. “We have something called ‘Performfluence,’ which… focuses on leveraging influencers not just for brand awareness, but for driving measurable actions such as conversions and sales,” says Cowling. “The approach includes content creation in multiple waves, testing and optimizing performance, utilizing search-optimized keywords and incorporating both long-form and short-form content.”

The shop is also looking at using artificial intelligence to build what they’re calling a “Newsroom,” where relevant stories and trends are automatically tracked by AI tools developed by a dedicated team, and which then recommends content strategies for brands to “hack culture” in real-time.

To enhance Citizen’s culture hacking capabilities, it plans to continue investing in the digital team. Cowling refers to them as “creative technologists” and is reliant on them to develop AI tools that produce more responsive content to online trends. And, on the analytics front, Citizen has created a research tool it calls “conversation mapping,” which is essentially a form of online ethnography that not only listens to conversations, but extracts qualitative data that can be used for social media surveys.

The agency’s transformation from PR to a more multidisciplinary offering is nearly complete. “Three years later, I would call it more of an integration,” says Cowling. “We’ve worked on modernizing our approach to integration, significantly upskilled our digital marketing and built a robust data and intelligence offering – all with the goal of being an even better PR agency.”

In addition to backing new digital initiatives, the agency is investing in its global presence by opening its doors in Germany, which is also intended to support the London office with a growing EU client base. Depending on how that goes, the agency may open up another European office next year.

Beyond strategy and creative, Citizen now has a full experiential team, an analytics group and the digital team. “I don’t think we need to add any additional capabilities because we still have lots of opportunities to merge PR and digital,” says Cowling. “It’s more about how we work together across the various teams.”

The building blocks are in place. Now it’s time to optimize.

New business
Nestlé Canada, CNIB, Harlequin, Little Caesars, Nature’s Path

New hires
Kelly Harrington, SVP integrated solutions; Vanessa Birze, VP production; Mark Mason, ECD, Canada; Ben Ruoff, SVP integrated digital strategy

Offices
Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Quebec City

Staff
189

Cases

“Addy’s Crystal Ball” for the SickKids Foundation used a giant crystal ball to symbolize the future of its Precision Child Health. The campaign, anchored by 13-year-old Addy’s inspiring story of having re-energized SickKids’ mission to see past medicine’s limits before she passed, garnered 52 million earned impressions and exceeded donation goals by 26%.

The “Asshole Activists” campaign for Tushy transformed bidet users into environmental heroes. Featuring provocative photography of several buttocks inside an art gallery, it aimed to challenge norms and promote eco-friendly habits. The campaign achieved 243.7 million impressions, 301 media stories and a 285% increase in Canadian sales.

For Molson Coors, the “Keep It Real Can” helped launch Simply Spiked Lemonade in Canada, leveraging the world’s first lie detector in a can. The innovation was shared on the streets, at events and on talk shows to see how truthful Canadians actually are. The PR push boosted brand awareness by 65%, making Simply Spiked the fastest-growing cooler in Canada.