Two PR agencies made The List in 2015. Could yours be on the 2016 list? Could your PR shop be Agency of the Year?
Nominations are now open.
The List heralds examples of the strongest business plays among creative, media and public relations firms. PR has seen a significant shift in recent years to be a bigger voice among those disciplines. While the core of the business (media relations, crisis management, etc.) remains essential, they must also hire social media experts, creative teams and strategy gurus.
The most successful stories in this space — the ones shortlisted for Agency of the Year — demonstrate not only an understanding of this changed landscape, but a mastery of it.
Media Profile earned its spot with strong client growth and playing to the traditional strengths of public relations. “In the past 16 months, the Toronto firm has won AOR status from almost a dozen brands including Kokanee, Longo’s and State Farm,” wrote Chris Powell in his profile of the Toronto shop. “But perhaps no win was bigger than Starbucks Coffee Canada. Breaking file from the rest of Starbucks worldwide (for which Edelman handles PR), it hired Media Profile at the start of 2015 following a competitive review.
North Strategic, meanwhile, continued its upward trajectory in 2015 with Canadian Tire, Twitter Canada and Tim Hortons, among others. Rebecca Harris reported in her profile that “while North does traditional PR, its social media and content offerings have given the agency a leg up. The agency’s video content division, Notch Video, helped the agency win the Tim Hortons account this year, according to co-founder Justin Creally. “It’s one thing to tell a brand, ‘Here’s the type of content that you should create.’ And it’s another thing to say ‘Oh and by the way, we can take care of that for you.”
Marketing has made a point in recent years to create a separate stream of nominations for PR agencies to better let them describe how they’re tackling their specific challenges. Success in this field looks different than success at a media agency, for example, and Marketing‘s editorial staff want to hear from those businesses that can demonstrate they’ve attained that success.
Nominate your business (or that of an amazing client) by downloading an Agency of the Year or Marketer of the Year nomination form today.
