Taxi grabs gold – again – in strategy‘s Agency of the Year race

Taxi nabbed gold in strategy magazine's Agency of the Year competition for the fourth year running - a first in the competition's history. The award was announced at Toronto's York Event Theatre last night. Five other agencies were also recognized including Vancouver-based Rethink, which emerged from last year's honourable mention standing to claim silver, while BBDO, which has offices in both Toronto and Montreal, captured bronze.

Taxi's gold win was based on the work it submitted for five clients: Reitmans, Telus, Viagra, The Worldwide Short Film Festival and Nike - most notable for its hockey campaign, which pushed OOH to rarely used 50- and 150-ft. heights, with athlete images hanging from a crane and on a floating billboard in Vancouver harbour.
By Natalia Williams
December 8, 2005

Taxi nabbed gold in strategy magazine’s Agency of the Year competition for the fourth year running – a first in the competition’s history. The award was announced at Toronto’s York Event Theatre last night. Five other agencies were also recognized including Vancouver-based Rethink, which emerged from last year’s honourable mention standing to claim silver, while BBDO, which has offices in both Toronto and Montreal, captured bronze.

Taxi’s gold win was based on the work it submitted for five clients: Reitmans, Telus, Viagra, The Worldwide Short Film Festival and Nike – most notable for its hockey campaign, which pushed OOH to rarely used 50- and 150-ft. heights, with athlete images hanging from a crane and on a floating billboard in Vancouver harbour.

Meanwhile, Rethink’s work for Solo Mobile (one of the campaigns submitted) went beyond the dry and literal demo spots, creating groups of pals who have become a ‘menace to society’ because of the product’s 10-4 feature. The campaign also included faux Websites ‘created’ by these groups as well as a series of wild postings. One of bronze winner BBDO Canada’s laurels came from its use of innovative media in the Labatt Bleue campaign, combining guerrilla elements, PR events and mass ads to raise votes for Parti Bleue – perhaps this year’s most promising political party.

Rounding out the pack were Toronto’s Lowe Roche as this year’s honourable mention; and Zig and DDB, which both secured finalist standing. The other agencies on the shortlist this year were: Montreal-based Diesel and Bos; and Toronto’s Downtown Partners and Grip.

The Agency of the Year process started when 50 CDs and marketers from across Canada were polled to determine which agencies would make the shortlist. Based on those results, the selected agencies were asked to submit work from five different clients executed over the last 12 months. The judging panel, made up of 14 creative directors and marketers — including two international judges – made the final deliberations based solely on the merits of this work. Working in isolation, judges were instructed to give each agency’s submission an overall score of 0 to 10. The agency with the highest final tally was declared the winner.

For details around the winners and their campaigns, click on http://www.strategymag.com/aoy/2005/.