Agnostic led the PR launch of the Terry Fox Research Institute’s Finish It campaign revealing the Foundation’s new brand platform and marking 45 years since the Marathon of Hope.
Before what became Agnostic, the Toronto – based independent PR and communications agency, Sarah Crabbe began with a simple mission. “I spent a lot of time talking to CMOs,” she recalls. “Asking what they felt was missing, what they actually needed – not just what agencies were selling them.”
Based on those answers, she built a firm not on buzzwords or promises, but on what Crabbe calls “better thinking.” And in an overcrowded marketing landscape that often measures everything but true impact, Agnostic has managed to stand out precisely because it slows down to ask: what are we solving for?
After a regional ban on personal fireworks threatened to damper Diwali celebrations in Ottawa, Agnostic led a partnership with Food Basics and the capital city’s Diwali Mela to bring light to the community through an innovative drone show. More than 500 community members gathered to celebrate, strengthening community ties for the brand and generating major media attention.
In six years, the agency has grown with intention. Today, it boasts four thriving practice areas – healthcare, CPG, food and beverage and corporate/tech – and a reputation for making things happen. Agnostic’s philosophy is simple but resolute: solve problems, don’t sell services. True to its name, the firm meets clients where they are. “We don’t push a one-size-fits-all solution,” Crabbe explains. “We look at the business problem first and then decide what channel makes sense.”
On World Menopause Day, Agnostic leveraged the influence of Jully Black to spark national conversation and spotlight Sinai Health Foundation’s urgent call to transform menopause care.
This ethos is part of what she calls being “in service to the work.” It’s a principle shaped in part by hiring journalists such as former Toronto Star editor, Amit Shilton.
This lens has shaped campaigns like Coinbase’s Canadian launch, for which the team reimagined how to build trust in a post-FTX crypto landscape. Public trust was at an all-time low, and many viewed digital currencies as a gamble. By pairing Coinbase with Interac – a widely trusted Canadian payment platform – they shifted the narrative from “crypto” to “finance.” They also created high-impact public forums, bringing Coinbase leaders face-to-face with the Canadian Securities Regulator and Shopify’s CEO to discuss responsible innovation. The result was not just coverage, but credibility.
Another standout campaign helped Food Basics celebrate Diwali. “The Southeast Asian community is an important one for Food Basics,” Crabbe says. “We learned that a local bylaw had banned fireworks in Ottawa, limiting community celebrations.” So instead of a splashy tokenizing gesture, Agnostic organized a community-centered drone light show that honored the spirit of the holiday while complying with the law. “That’s the difference between participating in culture and parachuting in,” Crabbe says. “We’re guests in those communities. That means listening first, acting second.”
As title sponsor of the Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson fight, Celsius tapped Agnostic to boost its presence in Canada, landing top sports media coverage and major national buzz.
The throughline in every campaign is a willingness to dig deeper – into audience insight, emotional truth and the real-world dynamics shaping perception. This approach led to Agnostic’s B2P Emotion Equation research launched earlier this year. A true look behind the role of emotion in B2B marketing and how logic and data need a human approach to drive results. This strategy is working. In 2024 alone, Agnostic acquired eight new clients and generated more than three billion impressions across its portfolio.
Crabbe’s belief in storytelling can be seen in Agnostic’s internal culture. One of its most beloved internal initiatives, Think Week, is a company-wide pause from deliverables to make space for curiosity. Staff might spend the day at a local museum or a downtown food market, for example. It’s not about leisure time, it’s about perspective. “In this industry, thinking has become a luxury,” Crabbe says. “But how can we deliver better ideas if we’re never looking up from our screens?”
The same philosophy inspired the launch of Agnostic Exchange, the agency’s experiential arm. “We saw an opportunity to bridge PR, advertising and experiential, which often operate in silos,” says Crabbe. “Whether you’re reading a Globe and Mail article, watching a drone show from a city street or seeing an ad on the subway, it should all feel cohesive. It should all come from the same insight.” At its best, Crabbe believes, experiential marketing shouldn’t feel like a tactic. It should feel like connection.
“Agnostic was born from asking: what if we did this differently? And we’ll keep asking that, again and again.” That kind of thinking, insists the agency president, isn’t optional for them. It’s the point.
CONTACT:
Sarah Crabbe
President
scrabbe@thinkagnostic.com
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