Strategy‘s Creative Report Card is back – this time with fresh perspective. We’re diving into the minds of the CRC’s top creatives and strategists to explore how they work within their craft and think about the future of advertising. Over the next week, we’ll spotlight the Top 5 individuals across the CCO, CD, AD, CW, Designer and Planner lists through bite-sized Q&As that reveal their creative processes, industry predictions and working philosophies, among many other things.
Today we’re looking at this year’s Top 5 planners. Earlier this week, we shared insights from the Top 5 CCOs and CDs. Visit our CRC website for all the lists and check back tomorrow for more.
#1 Planner: Sean McDonald, Rethink
What campaign(s) landed them on the CRC:
“Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch”, “Heinz Can’t Unsee It”, “Smack for Heinz”, “Slow this ad”, “Heinz AI”, “Heinz LVII Mean 57,” “Ketchup Fraud,” “Heinz Tattoo Label”, “It Has to be Heinz,” “Heinz Unfakeable,” “Colour of Love,” “Kraft Peanut Butter QJar Codes,” “Just Date a Farmer,” “A Little Taste of Hell” and “Philadelphia Bagel Wholes” for Kraft Heinz|| “See My Name”, “Coors Light’s Out”,” Worn by Drake” and “Coors Light Parenthood” for Molson Coors || “Branding Awards” for RGD || “Sport Your Period” for Knix || “Living Stories” for Penguin House || “Horror Codes” for Uber || “You’re Richer Than You Think” and “Pride Tape for All” for Scotiabank
What’s one thing you had to unlearn to become a better creative/strategy leader?
“The most important lesson I have learned along the way to becoming a CSO, and agency leader in general, is to recognize that I don’t need to be the best strategist to lead a team. Many of us start our careers striving to be noticed at any cost in every meeting, inadvertently trying to ‘win’ every debate or interaction within the agency or with clients. You will ultimately come to learn that the pursuit of winning isn’t leadership. As soon as you learn that your job is to build reasonable confidence within your team and relationships, the better your work will become and the better your team will be along with it.”
What recent work pushed you creatively, strategically and even emotionally?
“Most of what makes us successful at Rethink and with our client partners benefits from what you don’t see from the outside. We hold ourselves to a very high bar – and by ‘ourselves’ I mean within Rethink and the brands that we are lucky to partner with. I have worked closely with Crystal Sales, our strategic lead on Scotiabank, and others to push that brand alongside the incredible marketers at the bank, who are too many to name here. Together we have made tremendous strides to build renewed meaning into their tagline ‘You’re Richer Thank You Think.’
That work has infused significant new meaning into their hockey sponsorships through our ‘Hockey for All’ campaign and through their various products and lines of business targeting new and existing customers. Not to stop there, we also completed a visual rebrand of the entire bank, which involves an ambitious vision by [Scotiabank CMO] Laura Curtis Ferrera and tremendous stakeholder management. We benefit from an incredible partner to do that kind of work in the banking sector, and I believe that we have the best partnership in the category.”
#2 Planner: Julian Morgan, Rethink
What campaign(s) landed them on the CRC:
“Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch”, “Heinz Can’t Unsee It”, “Smack for Heinz”, “Slow this ad”, “Heinz AI”, “Heinz LVII Mean 57,” “Ketchup Fraud,” “Heinz Tattoo Label”, “It Has to be Heinz,” “Heinz Unfakeable,” “Colour of Love,” “Kraft Peanut Butter QJar Codes,” “Just Date a Farmer,” “A Little Taste of Hell” and “Philadelphia Bagel Wholes” for Kraft Heinz || “Salty Season” for PepsiCo
What’s something you had to “unlearn” about strategy to become more effective at your role?
“I used to think that I had to ‘come up with’ insights and truths like an abstract artist creates a painting. Overly indulgent thinking that sounded beautiful but in practicality wasn’t clear in meaning. I had to unlearn attempting to be poetic to the detriment of clarity for the audience. I’ve since replaced thinking of strategy as more of a street photographer trying to capture reality with a photo. It needs to be raw, observational and clear.”
What recent work pushed you creatively, strategically and even emotionally?
“‘Heinz You Can’t Unsee It’ for the Deadpool & Wolverine launch comes to mind. I’ve been working on Heinz for over six years, so trying to crack a new way to talk about Heinz every summer is a huge challenge. Once we cracked the brief of ‘being the unexpected hero of summer’ and the creative team had the idea to hack Deadpool & Wolverine, it took a lot of workshopping to get it to a place that felt fresh, not forced, which we see too frequently in brand collabs these days. The final idea was incredibly simple, but it took a lot of work to refine it to its purest form. That’s likely hard to see from the outside.”
#3 Planner: Emma Bayfield, Rethink
What campaign(s) landed them on the CRC:
“Heinz LVII Mean 57,” “Ketchup Fraud,” “Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch”, “Heinz Can’t Unsee It,” “Smack for Heinz,” ‘Heinz Slow This Ad,” “Heinz Tattoo Label,” “Kraft Peanut Butter QJar Codes,” “Heinz Unfakeable”|| “Who I Really Am” for CEE Centre for Young Black Professionals (by Publicis)
What’s something you had to “unlearn” about strategy to become more effective at your role?
“I had to let go of the belief that strategy is about defending a single point of view. Like many strategists, I began my career believing there was only one right way to solve a problem. I quickly realized that strategy without buy-in from the people around you isn’t effective. To put it bluntly — if the creative teams you work with aren’t down with your strategy, it will just get ignored. The best strategists are not only decisive but adaptable, helpful and collaborative. I learned that being open and flexible — especially when working with creative teams — is key to success. Instead of sticking rigidly to one idea or way in, I embrace the need to rethink and adapt our strategic approach for a stronger, more impactful end product.”
What recent work pushed you creatively, strategically and even emotionally?
“We recently launched ‘Actually, It’s IKEA,’ a campaign built on a simple truth: people are often surprised by IKEA’s quality for the price. Compliments on a couch or coffee table are met with the response: ‘Actually, it’s IKEA.’ When we introduced this insight at our client kick-off, it immediately resonated with everyone at the table. Keeping something this simple intact isn’t easy, there are always pressures to overcomplicate or dilute the message. So the challenge was to stay aligned at every step and constantly remind ourselves of our objectives and vision for the work. Seeing ‘Actually, It’s IKEA’ come to life in the final execution reinforced the power of a smart, clear insight and strong client collaboration from day one.”
#4 Planner: Shelley Brown, FCB
What campaign(s) landed them on the CRC:
“Runner 321” for Adidas || “Small Fortune Cookies” and “Dream Bars” for OLG || “Inployable” for the Canadian Down Syndrome Society || ‘Ticket to Dream” for Air Canada || “Be Right Back,” “Bankable Characters,” “BMO Goes West,” “Gamers Branch,” “Business Carols,” “NXT NXT Level” and “Bills Paid on Time” for BMO || “Business Differently” for Quickbooks || “Rainfall Warnings” for Fountain Tire || “On The Line” for GE Appliances || “Trending 2 Table” for Sobeys
What mindset or skillset do you believe will shape the next generation of planners and strategists?
“Today and increasingly in the future, we simply must embrace measurement, become more numerate, more comfortable with data, statistics, all of it. We must appreciate that measurement is not the enemy of creativity. Measurement is how we will prove creativity’s effectiveness. With more modern, more accurate and more predictive ways to measure than ever before, we have the tools, we simply must use them. The best thing that strategy can do is prove to the industry just how powerful creativity is.”
What recent work pushed you creatively, strategically and even emotionally?
“It can be difficult for financial institutions to engage with Gen Z. But last year we developed two campaigns with BMO that really explored new ways to connect with this generation. Both proved just how relevant BMO is for a target audience that tends to avoid banks altogether. With “Bills Paid on Time,” we dropped the first TikTok track that reminds Gen Z to pay their bills. We partnered with viral TikTok sensation, bbno$, and gave him control to create a custom track, “Bills Paid on Time,” and post on his handles to keep things authentic. The courage and commitment from the client made it possible.
On Twitch, we discovered an untapped media innovation that BMO could use to provide a meaningful benefit to the gaming community. When streamers have to step away to grab a bite to eat, they put up “Be Right Back” screens. But streamers always experience a significant drop-off in viewership in these moments. We created a unique role-playing game that made those moments worth sticking around for. The game centred on the streamer’s quest for food, connecting to BMO’s new rewards, offering 5x the points on takeout and delivery – proving that BMO understands not just how Gen Z games, but also how they eat. New spaces are uncharted territory, never easy, but definitely worth it.”
#5 Planner: Tom Kenny, Courage
What campaign(s) landed them on the CRC:
“What No One Tells You When You’re Expecting” for the North York General Hospital || “Bolo Tie,” “KFC Street Fighter,” “Fry Funeral,” Fixed It,” “Superstitious,” “Crispy Crumbs,” “Finger Lickin’ Open Endorsement, “Finger Lickin’ Injury Claims” and “Not Everyone’s Happy” for KFC || “The World Is Your Oyster” and “190 Goals for Goals” for CIBC || “Holiday Speeding Tickets,” “Windows Break,” “80 Degrees” and “Have AI Break” for Nestle || “Skip the Disscount” for Skip || “Trollboards” for Skyscanner
What’s something you had to “unlearn” about strategy to become more effective at your role?
“For years I was obsessed with writing briefs. I would agonize over every aspect of the document, ensuring that each piece fit with the larger whole and that no words were wasted. In my mind, this document was a strategist’s most meaningful contribution to the creative process and I wanted it to be flawless. Then one day I was updating my portfolio, and I realized something. About two-thirds of my most successful campaigns didn’t begin with a conventional brief. They were proactive ideas, or reactive ideas, or ideas that had evolved dramatically from their strategic blueprint. But despite not having a proper brief, I still felt like I had meaningfully contributed to their creation. This helped me realize that, yes, the brief is important, and it’s important that it’s considered and well written, but the brief is a small part of the contribution a strategist can make to a project.”
What recent work pushed you creatively, strategically and even emotionally?
“One of the biggest strategic tasks for us to solve this past year was repositioning CIBC’s travel card Aventura. Travel is a category rife with competition and stereotypes, and we needed to land a new idea that would stand out and genuinely reflect Canadians’ diverse personal travel ambitions. We were also moving away from one of the bank’s most successful, long-running brand assets with Percy the Penguin. After months of research to understand how the needs of Canadians had evolved when it came to travel, we landed on a positioning that both showcased what made the Aventura card unique and positioned it as the perfect enabler of the flexibility Canadians were craving with their travel. This positioning ultimately came to life in ‘The World is Your Oyster,’ a campaign that beautifully showcased Aventura as the passport to infinite possibilities.”
