SMALL AOY | SILVER (TIE)

This story was originally published in the 2023 fall issue of strategy magazine.

By Brennan Doherty

On their first day in the office, new hires at Juliet aren’t given the customary welcome of a branded Moleskine. Ryan Spelliscy, the agency’s founder and chief creative officer, says they’re let loose with $50 and asked to bring back stories of audiences they love. 

In the journalism world, this is called “shoe-leather” reporting, pounding the pavement to find compelling subjects and experiences. Juliet, a Toronto-based agency with an office in Los Angeles, is showing why this approach isn’t just for old-school newspapers. Personal stories touch audiences in a way that ordinary market research can’t. 

“So many people can walk around agencies and describe a persona,” Spelliscy says. “But can they actually describe the person, and the conversations you’ve had with them?”

Over the past year, Juliet scored work with The Keg and RE/MAX, joining its other major clients like FreshCo, SickKids Hospital and pet food company Redbarn. At the core of any Juliet project, Spelliscy says, is a willingness to send staffers into the field to learn everything they need to know about a brand’s audience. 

To understand the world of beauty, for example, the agency sends male staffers to get their first manicures and pedicures. “There’s a little bit of a lost art of rolling up your sleeves and going out and touching the dirt, if you will, with the actual people you’re trying to win with,” Spelliscy says. 

Juliet took that approach one step further when it partnered up with Mailchimp. The shop cobbled together an editorial division, led by editor-in-chief Greg Bolton and art director Joanna Durkalec, to basically act as an in-house magazine team. Through a mix of articles, newsletter posts, and other long-form content, this team took Juliet’s storytelling approach even further. 

To be clear, the division doesn’t replace Juliet’s more traditional offerings, a combination of strategy, production, creative and connections planning, as befits a full-service ad agency. But journalists, Spelliscy says, bring an aptitude for the long-form content needed in the ad world and a willingness to tell big stories. By contrast, he says, traditional ad creatives keep the brand narrative train on its tracks. 

Juliet didn’t fold up the editorial division after its Mailchimp campaign ended, either. The same team worked with the Directors Guild of Canada on its quest to draw Hollywood’s eye towards Toronto. Instead of a glitzy TV spot, Juliet went into the weeds with a full-blown content world called “‘Wider Lens.” 

Featuring a podcast, monthly newsletters, an interview series and in-person events, Juliet credits “Wider Lens” with doubling the DGC’s email open rate. Meanwhile, The Guild’s podcast open rate went up by a factor of 10. 

Spelliscy says the Directors Guild’s target audience of busy producers, directors and Hollywood executives “index really high on reading content about the industry… Rather than doing ‘advertising,’ it was always going to be content-driven.” 

Sometimes, Juliet will ditch the need for an ad brief from a client and flex its editorial muscle internally. For example, “Heart Shaped Glasses,” found on its website, tells compelling stories that aren’t tethered to any particular brand or campaign. 

The latest edition of “Heart Shaped Glasses,” titled “To Have Loved & Lost,” takes the stories of people who have lost the love of their life, and are looking to date again. Through Midjourney illustrations, Juliet interprets their struggle to accept their loss, live with it, and somehow find another partner without feeling as though they’ve betrayed their late love. 

That isn’t where the project started. “[The agency team] went to Palm Springs because they wanted to do a piece about [older] people dating,” Spelliscy says. “As they were doing the piece, people were talking about the loss of loved ones, and it evolved.” 

That act of listening to an audience, realizing their story isn’t quite what you anticipated and pivoting accordingly, is hard to do. So is keeping a good story within brand guidelines. Juliet’s team has proven it can do both.

Key New Business

Mielle, Sports Interaction, The Keg, RE/MAX, Bridgehead Coffee, Naturesage, Great Canadian Entertainment

Offices

Toronto, Los Angeles

Staff

30

CASES

1. It’s a dog’s world. For Redbarn, Juliet’s “Where Dog Dreams Come True” campaign brought dogs’ fantasies to life, differentiating its meat-rich kibble from competitor’s poorer offerings. Films and social media content featured dogs enjoying their dream scenarios, from digging in a massive pit to playing in a snow-filled playground in summer.

2. For Grizzly Coast, the “For the Love of Live” campaign created concert t-shirts for COVID-cancelled shows, generating income for Canadian bands. This unique collection featured original illustrations and dates for Grizzly Coast and ten other bands.

3. The “Same Team” campaign for the Canadian Cancer Society made the most of the cause’s NHL partnership to engage younger donors. Using archival footage, past and present cancer-affected hockey players united in a heartfelt plea for unity, urging supporters to join the fight against cancer.