Allison Cornford is a member of the original six.
When advertising agency Anomaly decided to set up shop in Toronto in 2012, she was among its first hires and the youngest member of the six-person team.
Easy as it may have been to fall into the “rookie” category, given her lean agency experience and 25 years of age, she was — and still is — a valued and critical member of the Anomaly team.
“At the time she was hired on as an account executive and she was one of only two account people… and she was really the rock on that team, so leading all the conversations with the clients, managing agency status and weekly status with the clients,” says Franke Rodriguez, partner and CEO of Anomaly Toronto. “Early days she was definitely one of the more important members of the team for sure.”
Four years and three promotions later, the 28-year-old, who now holds a director title, has been the go-to person when timelines are tight and the agency is down to the wire.
For instance, when Shock Top in the U.S. was looking for creative to run during this year’s Super Bowl broadcast, it knocked on Anomaly’s door.
Seeing sales declines in the U.S., the beer brand had tested the agency’s Canadian-made campaign south of the border. It scored through the roof and Shock Top was looking to replicate that magic.
Rather than the typical year-long lead time for a project such as this, Anomaly had to create and execute a Super Bowl-worthy television commercial within a couple of months.
Rodriguez asked Cornford to take the lead on the project and what had started as a brief for a one 30-second spot evolved into a 360 campaign including four 30-seconds ads and 16 online videos. “It kept growing as we presented ideas and snowballed into this great campaign we were proud to put in market,” she says.
The campaign reversed a decline in sales from -16% to +15% in one month and the online content drove over 1 billion PR impressions.
“She [managed the assignment] brilliantly and it was a hard job,” says Rodriguez. “I think [she was at] five or six different TV shoots over the course of two months, a lot of them out of the U.S. She stepped up. She owned it. She was bouncing back and forth between New York, Toronto and LA. She was just amazing.”
One of the first campaigns Cornford worked on as an account executive was for Labatt Breweries of Canada, the agency’s founding client.
Anomaly was charged with bringing the company’s hockey program to life and that’s exactly what the agency did with Budweiser Red Lights – a wifi-enabled replica hockey goal light that flashes and makes a goal horn sound whenever a user’s favourite hockey team scores.
Though the end result was a slickly-produced 60-second Super Bowl commercial and a branded product fans can’t get enough of, to get there it was all hands on deck as Cornford and the team worked tirelessly to ensure all the pieces were in place.
It was a huge undertaking, or as Conford puts it “Bud was a beast.” From finding a partner to physically produce the red lights to shooting additional pieces of content for online and overseeing copy on the instruction manuals.
“At the time we were incredibly lean, but my job was far more than an account executive because we rolled up our sleeves and did what we had to do… It was six months of all day every day,” she says.
Cornford, who is now the account director on Reese, Brookside and Hershey, sees herself as the “spark that helps ignite the creative team,” offering ideas and watching the team run with them. Rodriguez agrees with that assessment, saying the creative teams often seek her out for her point of view.
“Ali is an account person by trade, but in her spirit she’s a creative. She thinks really creatively. She likes solving problems and she’s really great at relationships,” he says.
“She’s really good at relationships,” adds Rodriguez. “I think some account people might have a challenge of establishing really strong relationships with the clients and then also establishing a really strong relationship with the creatives internally at the agency… Ali was always really good at establishing the trust of the creative team so they welcome her in.”
When asked why she’s a great account director, Cornford says it’s her passion for the industry. “I love advertising, I love really good work and I want to get the best work out the door and not self-serving creative. I want to make sure it’s moving [the client’s] business.”
When Cornford was interviewing for the account executive position at Anomaly, she told Rodriguez she wanted to join an agency she could spend the next decade with.
Whether she spends the next six years at Anomaly or moves on to another shop, it’s clear that based on her determination and hard work ethic that any agency would be lucky to have her as a member of its team.
There are insights and anecdotes aplenty in our 30 Under 30 editorial package. To get the scoop on our finalists visit 30U30.ca and read full profiles of Canada’s next set of marketing leaders.
