By Will Novosedlik

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

AGENCY | GOLD + DIGITAL | GOLD + PR | GOLD + DESIGN | BRONZE

“At many agencies, the goal is to earn impressions,” says CSO Sean McDonald. “At Rethink, we are trying to leave an impression.”

With seven consecutive AOY Golds to its credit, Rethink has certainly left an impression on the marketing community. And it has achieved that by doing for itself what it does for its clients’ brands. “Ultimately, the goal of a brand,” continues McDonald, “is to challenge the conventions that surround it so as to be distinct. The idea is to be unforgettable.”

As proof, who can forget the “Draw Ketchup” campaign for Heinz, or the Scotiabank tagline “You’re richer than you think,” or IKEA’s “The Troll”?

Though known for its creative brilliance, Rethink’s success is also the result of strong, longstanding client relationships, a fact not widely known in the industry. “This year is our 25th anniversary, and we’re still working with our very first client, A&W. I don’t think people understand how hard we work on the relationship.” In fact, the average length of a client relationship at Rethink is eight years – that’s an enviable achievement.

For long-term relationships with clients like A&W, Molson Coors, IKEA, Scotiabank and Kraft Heinz, it’s a matter of mutual success. “We have a lot of relationships where we see our clients succeed and they’ve watched us succeed with them,” says McDonald. “That momentum is precious, and I think it’s something that a lot of agencies would clamor for.”

It has also allowed the agency to build a strong full-service model, with many key clients engaging Rethink across advertising, PR and design. Late last year, the agency launched a new PR unit, headed by Meredith Burns.

McDonald points out that it wasn’t so much a launch as it was about hiring a new leader and renaming the unit Rethink PR. “PR launched several years ago under the name Brand Narrative, but not everybody understood what the service was, and so to be clear to clients, we renamed it Rethink PR. Meredith joined us from Hill & Knowlton to lead it, and it’s grown tremendously.”

In June of this year, Rethink announced the launch of a global design practice. The practice will span its North American offices in New York, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, but it is headed out of New York by managing director Larissa Marquez, who joined the agency in May after more than eight years at Brooklyn design studio Gretel, with career stops at Pentagram and 2×4. As reported earlier by strategy, its goal is to deliver end-to-end design solutions, from brand strategy and visual identities to packaging and design systems.

It’s an interesting evolution. Rethink started 25 years ago as a Vancouver-based design firm. It expanded its creative capabilities to include advertising and PR, opening offices in Toronto and Montreal, and eventually it came to be known primarily as an ad agency with support services in PR and design. With these recent announcements, McDonald believes the agency has repositioned its PR and design services from being subsidiaries of advertising to being peers.

He points out that there’s always been a PR capability within Rethink, but maybe not as a distinct service. “What we have started to do is put some more clarity around the services we offer. At the core of it is our strong focus on relationships. We have account managers and strategists recognized for both their creative and strategic effectiveness and that works across public relations, advertising and design.”

These days it’s sometimes difficult to see a clear line between those disciplines. Take PR and advertising, for instance. Looking at how agencies decide what categories to enter at awards shows, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between an ad campaign and a PR campaign. We asked McDonald how Rethink avoids that.

“Prior to working in advertising, I worked in PR,” he explains. “So I’m going to challenge you by saying that the way you positioned that question is a very advertising-centric way of looking at PR. And that’s because what you’re looking at is how can this brand gain attention in the public space. But there are also other reputational opportunities in terms of people, the brand topics, products and interests that any brand or business has that you won’t see at an advertising award show.

“Rethink sees itself as a steward of the brand across all of its functions. And that can happen in the public ways we’re famous for, but also in subtle ways. We can see corporately who represents the brand and what they have to say about it, what stories need managing and clarification so that they’re best understood and clearly covered. We’re known for having products outperform media investment, but we’re also very capable of being practitioners of the message and ensuring that brands have the right conduit for that message. How does it align to your overall advertising strategy? How can we develop it internally? How can we develop it with your leaders? How can we profile parts of the business, the brand or the product that may not get the attention it needs? And these are all functions that you don’t see in an awards show.”

So how are these practices knitted together? According to McDonald, it starts with the strategic core of a client’s brand – its identity, its personality and its frame of reference – ensuring that the brand challenges its surroundings and has the potential to be memorable. PR ensures the message is consistent and unforgettable, and design ensures a consistent identity across all visual touchpoints. The advertising will amplify that identity, promoting products and creating waves that drive results. All those things woven together help the agency outperform. “I think any agency that’s just filling the spaces that a client buys for them hasn’t done their job,” says McDonald. “We look at every opportunity that we can to be unforgettable. The goal is always to outperform the media investment, because that’s the only way we feel like we’ve done our job.”

To some extent, accounts are geographically localized. For instance, Montreal works with Bibigo, Vancouver works with Dave Forest, and Toronto works with Kraft Heinz and Molson Coors. But New York works with Kraft Heinz and Molson Coors in the US as well, plus other clients like Frito-Lay. McDonald thinks the difference with Rethink is that it isn’t a network agency. A network shop would likely require that work outside of Canada be done outside Canada. “At Rethink, we believe every one of our offices is a globally capable agency, and they act that way,” he says.

If that is the case, why have a New York office? The answer isn’t surprising. With more and more global clients, Rethink needed to be geographically closer to them. Its expansion strategy reflects the firm’s deep commitment to building strong client relationships. But at the same time, McDonald says growth is not the agency’s goal. Its goal in any market is to set the standard. “If that means that we have relationships that we can further invest in, be they in Europe or in South America, that would be an exciting opportunity. And I would say it’s not impossible over the next three to five years.”

The other investment on Rethink’s mind these days, as with everyone else in the business, is keeping up with technological change. Says McDonald, “Steve Jobs said that the personal computer should act like a bicycle for the mind in terms of increasing human efficiency. With every change in this industry, first comes the hype cycle, then everybody gets excited, then everybody gets scared and then everybody gets real. We’re in the ‘excited-to-scared’ phase, and I think we’re about to get real about where it can create efficiencies.”

The firm is looking at every way it can increase the time for Rethinkers to think, to be more ambitious, to improve the work and to improve throughput. “Rethink produces the most campaigns of any agency in this country,” says McDonald. “We feel success not through meetings, but through output. So how does AI affect collaboration? How does it enrich our thinking? How does it contribute to process? How does it help improve our production and our creativity? We look at it as a way to empower people, not replace them.”

If there’s evidence of that throughput, it’s this past year’s creative. Rethink launched a platform for Destination Canada based on the tagline ‘Canada, naturally.’ Montreal launched a witty campaign for IKEA based on the way the brand name is pronounced in Quebec. New York worked with Walton Goggins to launch golden sriracha Doritos, with the idea that ‘it’s spicy but not too spicy.’ And it’s done some fun stuff for Tangerine Bank, Molson-Coors and Miller – all in the service of making brands unforgettable, including its own.

New business
Cracker Barrel, Canton Gadoua, Egg Farmers of Canada, Instacart, FreshPrep, Destination Vancouver, Variety BC Children’s Charity, STARS, Ferrara Confectionary, Rockstar Energy

New hires
51, including 10 in Montreal, 14 in Toronto, 17 in Vancouver and 10 in New York

Offices
Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver,
New York

Staff
323

Cases | Agency of the Year

With IOC rules blocking athlete endorsements, Rethink found a clever loophole for Molson – paying their parents instead. Paid Through Parents turned moms and dads into brand ambassadors, funneled $15K per athlete and earned 389M impressions for the Paris Games.

Penguins took centre stage in a tongue-in-cheek protest against global tariffs. The Protest March of the Penguins turned meme culture into activism – earning 1B impressions, 3.4M views and a 453% spike in donations to Penguins International’s conservation work.

When Canadians couldn’t sleep, IKEA slid into their DMs with a cheeky “u up?” Instead of a hookup, it offered discounts. The playful campaign sparked 4.5M earned impressions, 36% higher mattress sales and a nationwide sleep conversation.

Knix’s Sport Your Period campaign by Rethink challenged the stigma around menstruation by paying athletes to speak openly about their periods – no logos, no product, just truth. The global movement earned 400M+ impressions, 31 hours of coverage and a 39% sales lift.

Cases | Digital

When Google erased key cultural dates, Rethink and YWCA turned its own tech into a protest. Rebook It invited people to re-add erased observances, sparking 11,000+ rebookings across 69 countries, 270% higher web traffic and a global call to reclaim visibility.

For Telus, the agency launched GameRx, the world’s first pharmacy that prescribes video games for wellness. Doctor-backed and gamer-approved, the platform reframed play as therapy – earning 4.6M impressions and changing 71% of perceptions about gaming and health.

When the Black Friday frenzy hit, Rethink and Decathlon Canada urged Canadians to reclaim time for movement. Make Time for Sports invited people to book workouts in their calendars – earning 1,100+ sign-ups, 26% higher searches and an 11% sales lift without discounts.

Cases | PR

When frozen dumplings couldn’t join the car-mukbang craze, Rethink and Bibigo built the Dashboard Kitchen – the world’s first in-car cooking station. The idea went viral, earning 317M impressions, $2.9M media value and a 13.8% sales lift.

To make golf more welcoming, Rethink and Golf Town created The 400some – 400 players teeing off together in one epic round. The record-breaking event drove 8.24% higher sales, 5.7% more traffic and 25M+ earned impressions nationwide.

To mend cross-border tensions, Rethink and Maple from Canada launched Maple Mate – a dating-driven campaign inviting Americans to brunch with Canadians. The cheeky initiative earned 445M impressions, 86% positive coverage and boosted U.S. maple-syrup sales by more than 16%.

Cases | Design

Rethink and Heinz reinvented ketchup as Chip Dip – a clever packaging redesign that turned fries’ favourite sauce into a viral snack staple. The campaign went on to earn 604M impressions, 99% positive sentiment and reignited love for Heinz with a 7% sales lift.

To stand out in a slow-food category, Rethink and Full Pin Mushrooms built a racing-garage identity – sleek, efficient and engineered for performance. The bold new look fueled 18% B2B growth, sell-out grocery launches and 63% higher social engagement.

Rethink and Telus reimagined the Telus Esports Series with a design system rooted in gaming culture. The refreshed look balanced brand heritage with player authenticity – earning 55.9M impressions, 1.9K participants and crowning Telus as Canada’s largest esports tournament.