Pizza Pizza and Zulu Alpha Kilo’s cheeky reaction to North American political tensions earned serious accolades at the CMA Awards, taking home Best of the Best honours at Friday night’s gala at the Westin Harbour Castle in Toronto.

The “Bipartisan Wings” campaign took a light-hearted spin on attack ads, with the QSR boasting its ability to unite “Right Wings and Left Wings” in a hero video with a “hungry-for-change” message that served as a double-entendre nod to the unease of the final months of Justin Trudeau’s time as prime minister and the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Pizza Pizza and Zulu Alpha Kilo followed up on the concept with its “Reverse Tariff” campaign in February that offered a 25% discount on regularly-priced pizzas and a summer sequel that touched on “Canada’s Pizza Heritage” for July 1.

Earlier in the evening, the CMAs handed out the Top Cause award to Mattie’s Place and Publicis Toronto for “Pet-ition,” a campaign that took a paw-print protest all the way to the House of Commons to bring attention to antiquated federal animal-welfare laws amid an increase in pet abandonment. The work used a loophole in petition law, which doesn’t specify that you must be human to sign one, while using strategists, creatives and PR experts to spread its message and engage volunteer and online communities.

Beyond the best campaign work, the CMA also honoured some of the industry’s top marketers with special individual awards. Empire CMO Sandra Sanderson received the Lifetime Achievement Award and Catherine Roche, chief marketing and communications officer at BMO, was named Marketer of the Year. Lindsay Chase, senior strategist at Elemental, took home the Achievement in Marketing Award, which highlights an individual from the next generation for their “outstanding performance and promise in the marketing profession on both the client and agency sides of the industry.”

Skip led all brands with seven trophies, while TD Bank earned 10 across their masterbrand. FCB and Courage were the top agency winners on the evening with 17 awards apiece.

On the night, 162 awards were presented across six disciplines, including brand building, business and brand impact, customer experience and shopper marketing, engagement, innovative media and public relations. In each discipline, entrants competed in the categories of automotive, business, consumer products and services, financial, food and beverage, retail and consumer businesses, health care and social causes.

Mary DePaoli, EVP and CMO at RBC, and Stephanie Yung, chief design officer at Zulu Alpha Kilo co-chaired this year’s CMAs.