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| Rethinking Toronto (l to r): Dré Labre, Pema Hegan, Tom Shepansky, Chris Staples, Ian Grais |
While agencies have gotten their start in Toronto before heading west as client needs dictate, Vancouver’s Rethink is reversing the pattern with a new Toronto office opening April 5.
With 60 staffers already in Vancouver and almost half of all business in Toronto, it made sense to open an office in that city, said Chris Staples, who founded the agency in 1999 along with Ian Grais and Tom Shepansky. Since opening the doors, the partners have often said they would not put an office in Toronto. So why the change?
“We’ve basically grown as big as we can in Vancouver,” said Staples, adding that with three of their larger clients–Sobeys, Solo Mobile and Sympatico–in Toronto, the partners are already spending a good deal of their time there anyway.
Rethink also works with Vancouver-based national clients, A&W Restaurants and Mr. Lube.
“Almost all of the national accounts are headquartered in Toronto and we’ve had to turn down a lot of them over the years because they really want a local office,” he said. “It will give us all new opportunities to work on and allow us to apply the model that we’ve built to some bigger brands.”
The 4,000 sq.ft. office on Spadina Avenuewill be run by Pema Hegan, partner and managing director, and creative director Dré Labre, most recently with Tribal DDB.
“Dré is probably one of the top digital guys in the country and I think it’s a real coup that he would come to us,” said Staples.
Hegan worked at Rethink Vancouver as an account director until December 2004 when he left to launch Dose with publisher Noah Godfrey. After Dose folded in mid-2006, Hegan and Godfrey launched GigPark, a social media start-up that was bought by Canpages last August.
Staples said Hegan and Labre’s strong digital background is an important element of the new agency. “Digital is super important right now and if we didn’t have guys that were really up to speed on new media, digital and social media it would be a tremendous mistake,” he said. “When you are starting something from scratch, of course you are going to have a digital focus.”
“Opening Rethink Toronto is an amazing opportunity for me because it lets me take everything I’ve learned about building, growing, and eventually selling GigPark… and apply it back to my first love–the world of brands and marketing,” said Hegan.
Staples said the agency will open with eight to 10 staff, with plans to double that in the first year. “They’ll have the full creative resources of Rethink Vancouver behind them,” he added.
