The Great Gold North
By Brett McKenzie on Jun 29, 2018
Ten gold-winning campaigns from Canadian agencies and studios
This Sunday is Canada Day, the 151st birthday of our friendly neighbors to the north. While the country is best known for hockey, maple syrup and dreamy actors named Ryan, Canada has long fared well on the global stage when it comes to advertising and design. The Great White North ranked fifth among all countries this year at both The One Show and the ADC 97th Annual Awards.
As we head into the weekend, grab your poutine and a double-double, and settle in for ten of Canada's Gold Pencil and Cube winning work from this spring.
Cossette's Toronto and Montreal offices took the McDonald's Golden Arches and turned them into a wayfinding system that works in any market in the world. The arches pointed Cossette towards two Gold Pencils for design.
In Quebec, everyone buys beer in dépanneurs, mom and pop corner stores that tend not to be the prettiest places on the block. Sid Lee Montreal spruced up more than two dozen such shops to announce the return of Molson Export's classic stubby bottles, and won a Gold Pencil in the process.Santé!
Cancer sucks big time, and even more so if you're a kid. To help young children come to terms with their diagnose, Vancouver's Giant Ant contributed this whimsical video to a series created for the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation. The film won an ADC Gold Cube and a Best of Discipline honor for illustration.
Raising a child with Down Syndrome can be a challenge, but one that shouldn't necessarily elicit sympathy for parents. That's the message in this funny and foul-mouthed campaign by the Toronto office of FCB Canada and the Canadian Down Syndrome Society, which won a Gold Pencil back in May.
Pride Month might be winding down, but pride itself is a 365-day journey. Take a trip with FCB/SIX Toronto and PFLAG Canada, as they use thousands of data points sourced from all over the world to help display which potential travel destinations are more favorable than others in regards to LGBTQ issues. "Destination Pride" won an ADC Gold Cube for Data Visualization.
BBDO Toronto and stationery store Take Note tug at the heartstrings with this dialogue-free ode to love — and all of its triumphs and challenges — by way of handwritten communication. It seems very apropos that film all about writing would win a Gold Pencil.
Toronto's Juniper Park\TBWA sought to modernize the Miller Lite brand in the eyes of younger drinkers by taking a minimalist spin on the recently reintroduced white can. By developing a new icon based on the can, they were able to create a bold and constantly evolving visual identity — and earn a Gold Pencil in the process.
To help people better grasp some of the symptoms and effects of Alzheimer’s, Rethink Canada and Branch Out Neurological Foundation surreptitiously altered the phone voices of unsuspecting individuals, so that their loved ones wouldn't recognize them and they wouldn't understand why. The campaign earned Rethink a Gold Pencil.
According to a survey, 50% of Canadians would not knowingly accept food from someone who was HIV positive.In this Gold Pencil-winning campaign, Bensimon Byrne, Narrative and OneMethod of Toronto, in partnership with Casey House, aimed to challenge fears and misconceptions by opening a pop-up eatery staffed by HIV+ chefs.
Cossette Toronto closes off this list with an empowering campaign for the Hospital For Sick Children. In order to raise funds for the globally renowned hospital's renovations, Cossette imagines actual SickKids patients from all over the city banding together to rebuild the hospital themselves. The campaign earned two Gold Pencils and contributed to $145 million in donations.
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