Fiona Stevenson, left, Lyranda Martin-Evans host strategy’s 2025 Agency of the Year awards
at Kroener Hall in Toronto on Wednesday night.

Rethink keeps making AOY history. This time, the indie agency won its seventh-straight Agency Gold. And that wasn’t all – Rethink added to its tally with two more Golds for Digital and PR and a Bronze in Design. That made just one less Gold for Rethink than last year’s showing of four.

This year’s medal haul was collected at Koerner Hall in Toronto on Wednesday evening in front of a 500-plus crowd. Rethink’s portfolio of Gold-winning work was created for clients Molson Coors, Penguins International, IKEA, Knix, YMCA, Telus, Decathlon Canada, Bibigo, Golf Town and Maple.

The Rethink team pick up their AOY 25  award on Wednesday night.

The other Golds from the night went to Hard Work Club for Small, Starcom for Media and Cossette for Design.

Hard Work Club took home the honours for clients Canadian Club, Partake and DoorDash. Meanwhile, Starcom led Gold-winning planning and buying strategies for brands Budweiser and Rona.

This year’s Campaigns of the Year (COY) received the highest combined score across six categories: Agency, Media, Digital, PR, Design and Small. The COY winners included Rethink’s “Can’t Unsee It” for Heinz (Agency); Starcom’s “Visible Billboards” for TD (Media); Courage’s “Skip Spell Codes” for Skip (Digital); Veritas’s “King of Zero” for Budweiser (PR); LG2’s Cordon Bleu rebrand (Design); and The Local Collective’s “One in 100” campaign for Safehaven (Small).

The 2025 Silver winners include Leo, The Local Collective, Agnostic, Cossette Media, LG2 and Courage. The Bronze medallists include Courage, Lifelong Crush, Citizen Relations, Initiative, Cossette Design and Rethink.

Decided by jury members from both brands and agencies, strategy’s 2025 AOY winners are divided into six categories, representing a diverse crop of medallists – some familiar, some new to the top of the podium – which can be found below, in winning order. Watch this space over the next week for features and cases for each of the winners from strategy magazine’s Fall issue.

In addition to the agencies honoured for their creative, PR, design, digital and media work, five marketing organizations were also presented with a 2025 Brand of the Year award. The brands include the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), Kids Help Phone, Sleep Country, Clutch and Terroni. Articles featuring each brand will also appear in this year’s Fall issue.