Uncategorized Archives | Weber Shandwick Canada

Will diversity make Canada a creative powerhouse?

Greg Power

It’s been said the world needs more Canada. In our increasingly diverse world, I believe global marketing needs the influence of more Canadians – and more Canadian creative agencies need to be involved.

One the most remarkable traits Canadians have is our attitude towards diversity. When other nations are closing borders, Canadians are doing the opposite and broadening their world view.

Justin Trudeau has ushered in two ideals that were controversial 50 years ago, but are Canada’s distinguishing differences today.

Weber Shandwick wins Canadian Agency of the Year at SABRE Awards

Victoria Cacioppo

Agency’s transformational growth drives award-winning work for clients

TORONTO, May 2, 2018 – The Holmes Report recognized Weber Shandwick Canada at the 2018 North American
SABRE Awards, where the agency won the coveted title of Canadian Agency of the Year. As the only multinational
finalist in the category, the agency contributes its success to the award-winning client work produced over the past year.

Evolving snail with legs -- a metaphor for Weber Shandwick Canada

Fellow planners, have you considered PR?

David Akermanis

Strategic planners are reshaping PR, in pursuit of an ideal Canadian advertising agencies have never quite realized.

It seems like almost every time I get together with fellow planners someone asks me what it’s like to work as one within a PR agency. And rightly so. It’s a relatively new function within the world of PR, which has spent the last several years moving away from a model where everyone was expected to do everything.

What CEO Activism Looks Like in the Trump Era

Leslie Gaines-Ross

Once upon a time, CEOs did not comment on governmental regulations or policies other than those
that directly affected their industries or companies. The business of business was business, and
commenting upon non-business-related issues was anathema.

Nowadays, hundreds of CEOs have weighed the risks against the rewards of speaking out and
decided to speak publicly. They have spoken out on social, political, and environmental issues, such
as climate change, LGBT rights, equal pay, immigration, gun control, and race relations. Most of
these CEOs have been based in the U.S., but many lead global companies.

The Year Ahead in Five Movies: My top priorities for 2017

Greg Power

I believe that great game changing ideas come from the edges, not from where you usually look. That’s why I like how the arts — and especially movies — let you free your mind to explore new ways of looking at familiar things.

At WS Toronto we host monthly Movie Nights for our staff. We choose movies that make you think. Then we discuss their relevance to our work. One thing we’ve all learned is, you can stumble on some great nuggets tucked inside a documentary or feature film. Like Pete Townshend’s insight on building an audience: “don’t market to them, market them” in the doc Lambert and Stamp or Errol Morris’s view from the The Fog of War that the public “sees what it believes, and does not believe what it sees.”

Over the holidays I spent some quality time watching movies and TV series that link to my key business priorities for 2017. Here is what’s on my mind for next year [and what you may want to put on yours?].

Comparing Obama's and Trump's inauguration crowds

For brands, fake news is an existential threat

Cameron Summers and Paul Lawton

In the wake of the U.S. election and related attacks on brands such as New Balance, much of the public has become aware that there are consequences to living in the “filter bubble” – a place where anything goes in a sharable universe. As a result, Facebook and Google have come under intense scrutiny. One of the consequences of the filter bubble is the success of fake news, an indication not only of a public shift in the traditional rules of discourse, but also in the degree to which truth is now seen as a negotiable concept.