The Process

As with past years, Agency of the Year kicked off with an open call to Canadian agencies to throw their five best campaigns from the previous 12 months into the proverbial ring.

We then shared those submissions with senior agency and marketing executives across Canada, asking them to choose the agencies they thought had produced the best work. Points were awarded based on how many times an agency was selected, and those with the most points were invited to participate in the awards by submitting their top five cases from the previous year.

A judging panel of senior industry execs then scored the work in a secure online process. They were asked to award each case two scores out of 10, one for creativity and the other for strategy. Judges who declared conflicts with campaigns or agencies abstained, and scores were averaged accordingly.

Scores were tallied and averaged, with equal weight, and the agency with the highest final score was the winner.

The Scores

CREATIVITYSTRATEGYTOTAL
BBDO 7.81 BBDO 7.73 BBDO 15.54
Taxi 7.39 DDB 7.42 DDB 14.65
Leo Burnett 7.27 Taxi 7.25 Taxi 14.64
DDB 7.23 John St. 7.22 Leo Burnett 14.38
John St. 7.13 Leo Burnett 7.11 John St. 14.35
Sid Lee 7.05 Rethink 7.02 Rethink 14.05
Rethink 7.03 The Hive 6.86 Sid Lee 13.70
Grey Canada 6.87 Grey Canada 6.74 Grey Canada 13.61
The Hive 6.71 Sid Lee 6.65 The Hive 13.57
Target 6.56 Target 6.58 Target 13.14
CP+B 6.46 CP+B 6.55 CP+B 13.01
TBWA 6.40 ZAK 6.54 ZAK 12.87
ZAK 6.33 Draftfcb 6.35 TBWA 12.75
Draftfcb 6.16 TBWA 6.35 Draftfcb 12.51