McCann Canada took an interstellar step beyond opening its new office and revamping its website to celebrate its name change by burying the “MacLaren” portion of its former moniker in outer space.
The company on Thursday held a gathering with clients and staff at its new 60,000-ft location on 200 Wellington St. W. in Toronto, where it moved from the space it inhabited at Queen’s Quay for the past 27 years. The timing was deliberate: July 7 marked the 101st year of McCann in Canada, and CEO David Leonard told Marketing the simplified name will offer closer integration with McCann Worldgroup companies and a stronger brand identity for its clients.
That said, Leonard paid tribute to the long history of MacLaren McCann, which was formed in 1995 through the merger of the two agencies. In fact, Leonard said his first job interview when he came to Toronto some 20 years ago was with MacLaren Advertising. According to his LinkedIn, Leonard began his career in advertising at Expo in Vancouver.
To show proper respect – and to stand out from the traditional approach to a name change – McCann Canada reached out to Celestis, a division of Space Services. The “MacLaren” portion of its office sign was burned to ashes and sent up via rocket launch, a process that cost $1295. (In a video created for the occasion, Leonard is briefly seen giving budget approval for the initiative.)
“A lot of companies will do a rebrand, open a new office, but nothing’s really changed,” Leonard said. “This is a completely new company . . . We’re transforming the culture, which is a very strong unified culture, but I think it’s been very much about service and client-centric. That’s fantastic, but what I think you’ll see moving forward is a product orientation and a focus on the work.”
Leonard said the changes capped off a major round of hiring, including Darren Clarke as CCO last year. The results of those staffing moves are already apparent, he said.
“It’s night and day,” he said. “This company has been on the top of the pile creatively many times in its history, and we have to put it back there. We should hold on to all the wonderful things with our past, such as the values and beliefs, but don’t forget we’re in a product business.”
McCann Canada is undergoing its transformation at a time when agency-client relationships have arguably never been more fraught with tensions over the costs and value of creativity, among other issues. Leonard said the only recourse was to accept the fact that every day is a fight to win and keep a brand’s business.
“It’s proof of performance and relationships. If either one of those goes south, the business goes out the door quickly,” he said, adding that agencies need to be “selective and surgical” in the business they pick. “They just want answers, they want help. They just want to go the best configuration of partners that provide that. If you think you’re going to have an AOR relationship for 20-30 years, those days are gone.”
McCann will be demonstrating its expertise in finding some of those answers when it publishes The Truth About Canadians, a research project that looks at how consumers interact with brands, which it is developing with Ipsos Reid. Leonard said that report will be coming out soon.
