Under the immersive lights of the Design Exchange, 23 agency powerhouses were recognized at the AToMiC Awards Thursday night in Toronto’s financial district. In attendance, among the country’s top ad shops, were also brand leaders who were awarded for their influential contributions as Marketers of the Year. To top it off, the final top rankings in the 2025 Creative Report Card were revealed, with medals given to Canada’s most-awarded talent.

The jam-packed evening came to a conclusion with the Grand Prix AToMiC Award given to Rethink and Knix. The duo picked up the ultimate prize for their “Sport Your Period” campaign, which embarked on a mission to normalize periods in sport by showing athletes wearing a simple red dot (if they were menstruating while competing) and openly talking about menstruation in public. That campaign also struck Gold in the Cause & Action category.

Rethink made several trips to the AToMiC stage before claiming the Grand Prix. Campaigns for three other Rethink clients – Kraft Heinz, Molson Coors and the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers – were also awarded Gold trophies, a total of 12.

Those campaigns featured Molson helping athletes to fund their Olympic dreams (“Paid Through Parents“) and turning a billboard blunder into a positive play (“Coors Lights Out“).

Meanwhile, Rethink was awarded Golds for work that saw Kraft Heinz baking bready breakfast items (“Philly Bagel Wholes”), using tech to replace empty PB jars (“Q-Jar Codes“), reinventing a fledgling product (“Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch“), pairing condiments with Marvel characters (“Can’t Unsee It”) and putting ketchup in hungry hands (“Smack for Heinz”). In addition, Rethink’s work with the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers was also awarded a Gold AToMiC cube for picking up a portion of diner tabs in the U.S. (“Bill The Maple“) – a campaign that takes on new meaning in today’s political climate.

Joining the Gold winners’ circle is Angry Butterfly and Stok’d Cannabis for their clever collaboration with neighbouring businesses (“Next to Stok’d“); Bensimon Byrne and White Ribbon for putting a painful spotlight on transphobia (“Short Life Stories“); Courage and North York General Foundation for helping to better prepare first-time parents (“What No One Tells You When You’re Expecting“); Edelman and IKEA for removing unfair double taxes (“SHT“); FCB and BMO for dropping a Gen Z-friendly track (“Bills Paid On Time“); Klick and KVI Brave Fund for creating a non-invasive diabetes testing tool (“Voice 2 Diabetes“).

Rounding out the Gold winners are McCann and Black & Abroad for hunting down bias in AI imagery (“See You There“); No Fixed Address and Doki Doki for a clever audio-led promo (“Posters You Can Hear”); Sid Lee and United Way for bringing the affordable-housing crisis to life (“Open House”); and finally, VML and clients Volkswagen and the Rick Hansen Foundation for replacing dead air with a branded broadcast (“Sans Emission“) and for a powerful accessibility film (“Just Because We Can“), respectively.

The evening was topped off with a reveal of some of this year’s Creative Report Card results: #1 CCO Aaron Starkman, #1 Planner Sean McDonald, #1 CD Xavier Blais, #1 AD Zachary Bautista, #1 CW Geoff Baillie and #1 Designer Mustaali Raj – all of whom work at Rethink, with the exception of Raj, who freelances for Rethink. Sweeping all six CRC individual lists is a feat only done once before in 2022 by Rethink. Not surprisingly, the shop also claimed the #1 Agency spot alongside client Kraft Heinz as the #1 Brand in the Creative Report Card (see image of the teams below). The full lists can be accessed in strategy‘s CRC online hub here.

To see who else won at the 14th annual AToMiC Awards – including Silver and Bronze recipients – as well as their case studies, visit the program website here. Spanning advertising, technology, media creativity and content categories, AToMiC represents the best achievements across Canada’s marketing and media industries, shining a spotlight on the projects that challenge the status quo.