AGENCY OF THE YEAR 2011
SOMETIMES HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, BUT WITH A BIT OF A TWIST

For our 2008 Agency of the Year awards, Taxi, BBDO and DDB duked it out for Gold, Silver and Bronze, respectively. Three years later and the same players are back, only with different rankings.

For the first time in the now 21-year history of AOY, BBDO has moved up to nab the Gold. Not that it hasn’t shown momentum over the years, racking up a Bronze in 2005 and numerous Silvers in the mid-1990s. But this year, with its Bronze B!G Award win — not to mention its showing in the new Digital Agency of the Year competition (see p. 13) — BBDO has definitely upped its game. From involving consumers in destroying a chip flavour to a channel devoted entirely to roasting chicken, the agency has a way of engaging consumers in unconventional ways.

Meanwhile DDB, which has taken home the Gold for the past two years, continues to hold its own, snatching the Silver and narrowly beating out Taxi, which took the Bronze.

There are also a few newbies and near-newbies to the winners’ circle. Leo Burnett won Honourable Mention after having been out of the medal running for a spell, while John. St., as a Finalist, enters the circle for the first time since 2008 and Rethink is back as a Finalist after a year-long hiatus, having won awards in 2009 and prior.

From candies to cars, the calibre of work showcased for this year’s AOY resonated with the judging panel.

As judge Howard Thomas, VP, marketing communications and brand, CIBC, put it, “Who says Canadian agencies can’t compete with the best in the world?”

So let’s take a peek at the winners’ campaigns, and read about what they’re doing now, and more importantly, where they’re going next.