2006 MARQUE AWARDS
Full Service/Creative Agency of the Year: Taxi
Insightful team (l-r): Steve Mykolyn, VP, design and interactive creative director; Zak Mroueh, VP, executive creative director; and Rob Guenette, president, Taxi Toronto
Rabinowicz, the president of Taxi Canada’s Montreal office, isn’t talking about one of his shop’s clients, even though that list includes household names like Reitmans, Canadian Tire, McCain and Bombardier. Actually, Rabinowicz is talking about Taxi’s own brand. “One of the great agency brands in the world,” he says.
It sounds cocky, and while Rabinowicz and the Taxi faithful would say it’s just self-confidence, it’s true that 2006 held one highlight after another. In 2006, the agency’s hit parade included strategic domestic growth, international creative accolades, the addition of blue-chip clients and doing solid work that showed Taxi isn’t just about the buzz. And all the while, it maintained its cachet as Canada’s it-shop. That’s why Taxi is Marketing‘s 2006 Full Service/Creative Agency of the Year.
For Rabinowicz, who saw his Montreal staff count grow to more than 60 from 14 in about 30 months, that highlight reel includes a high-profile, albeit pro-bono assignment for the Millennium Foundation, a charity organization led by Canadian chairs Belinda Stronach and Rick Mercer, that aims to raise funds to purchase bed nets to prevent the spread of malaria in Africa. Taxi was given the work after agency patriarch Paul Lavoie met Stronach at a conference earlier this year, where he gave a speech on how to better brand Canada. “I have the easiest job in the world,” Rabinowicz says. “It’s been very easy to build Taxi in Montreal-the only problem we have is managing growth.”
It’s a shared problem among Taxi’s other senior leaders, especially Rob Guenette, president of Taxi Toronto, who, in September, realized the agency’s promise to itself not to grow past 150 staffers at any one location. Solution? Taxi 2 opened its doors in September, profitable even before its first official day. Taxi 2 now handles business for BMW’s Mini, soft drink Fresca, restaurant chain Jack Astor’s and Purdy’s Chocolates.
For their part, agency chair Lavoie and his life-partner Jane Hope, who together co-founded Taxi 14 years ago with François Sauvé (who has since left the picture), have been busy building the shop’s New York office, and have essentially left the Canadian operations to Guenette, Rabinowicz and executive creative director Zak Mroueh.
This spring, Taxi unveiled one of the year’s most talked-about campaigns as Canadian Tire’s new agency of record. The work, which deliberately ousted the iconic Canadian Tire Guy and CT’s long-used “demomercials,” drew its share of criticism for missing the wow factor Taxi had built its name on. But Guenette says the point wasn’t just to wow people. “If we went just for the shock value or tried to get in front of some of the anticipation of this new campaign, we would have done something wrong for the brand,” he says. “We couldn’t do that.”
It’s the same reason why McCain Foods of Florenceville, N.B. hired the shop, says president and CEO Fred Schaeffer, who based that decision on Taxi’s “super-talented” creative teams, client service and insights. “They work incredibly hard to get to know your business and provide real insights on your categories,” he says.
Taxi also used 2006 to prove it was still as creative as ever. The shop tied for eighth place in a recent Creativity ranking of agencies and worldwide awards won-ahead of venerable names like Goodby Silverstein and Partners and Fallon London.
And Canada’s lone gold Lion at the 2006 Cannes festival for Taxi’s interactive work on Mini was a bright light in what was otherwise a down year for Canadian agencies. Taxi NYC, meanwhile, won a bronze Lion in the Film category.
Managing growth remains a top Taxi challenge-a Vancouver office, which will grow its Western presence beyond Calgary, is expected to open in the new year. Montreal is currently going through its second space expansion. Guenette hints at yet another new office somewhere outside of Canada. “We want to make sure we defy the convention that once you get big, you get bad,” Guenette says. “We just don’t believe that to be true. There’s no reason why growth has to be a hurdle to creativity.”
