The Process

As in previous years, the AOY process began with the selection of which agencies would be invited to compete. This was based on a poll of 50 senior creatives and client marketers from across Canada. From a comprehensive list of agencies and their major campaigns, each person was asked which shops stood out on the basis of their work over the past year. Points were earned based on the number of times a particular agency was selected to be on the shortlist. The agencies invited to participate were BBDO, Bleublancrouge, DDB, John St., Leo Burnett, Lowe Roche, Ogilvy, Rethink, Sid Lee, Taxi, TBWA\Vancouver, and Zig. Each shortlisted agency submitted five advertising campaigns representing work executed for five different brands over the previous 12 months.

While in past years the jury has been divided into two panels – creative (agency judges) and strategic (marketer judges) – this year we refined the process by asking the judges to provide a creative and strategic mark for each campaign (previously they were restricted to a single mark per agency). Working in isolation, the judges gave each campaign an overall score of zero to 10 based on strategic insight and the ability to execute creatively. Judges who declared conflicts were omitted from the scoring on relevant cases and/or agencies.

The scores were then totalled and averaged, with equal weighting. The agency with the highest final score was the winner.

The Scores

Here are the judges’ averages that determined the Agency of the Year.

Creative scores

Strategic scores

Overall scores

Agency

Score

Agency

Score

Agency

Score

DDB

7.68

DDB

7.51

DDB

7.60

Rethink

7.59

Rethink

7.34

Rethink

7.47

Zig

7.47

Leo Burnett

7.13

Zig

7.23

Lowe Roche

7.20

Ogilvy

7.12

Lowe Roche

7.14

Taxi

7.19

Lowe Roche

7.07

Taxi

7.13

Sid Lee

7.12

Taxi

7.06

Ogilvy

7.04

Ogilvy

6.95

Zig

6.99

Sid Lee

6.98

John St.

6.89

BBDO

6.84

Leo Burnett

6.93

Leo Burnett

6.72

Sid Lee

6.83

John St.

6.86

TBWA\Vancouver

6.68

John St.

6.82

BBDO

6.75

BBDO

6.66

TBWA\Vancouver

6.77

TBWA\Vancouver

6.73

Bleublancrouge

6.40

Bleublancrouge

6.48

Bleublancrouge

6.44