In June of this year, Rethink announced the launch of a global design practice. The practice will span its North American offices in New York, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, but it is headed out of New York by managing director Larissa Marquez, who joined the agency in May after more than eight years at Brooklyn design studio Gretel, with career stops at Pentagram and 2×4. As reported earlier by strategy, its goal is to deliver end-to-end design solutions, from brand strategy and visual identities to packaging and design systems.

It’s an interesting evolution. Rethink started 25 years ago as a Vancouver-based design firm. It expanded its creative capabilities to include advertising and PR, opening offices in Toronto and Montreal, and eventually it came to be known primarily as an ad agency with support services in PR and design. With these recent announcements, McDonald believes the agency has repositioned its PR and design services from being subsidiaries of advertising to being peers.

He points out that there’s always been a PR capability within Rethink, but maybe not as a distinct service. “What we have started to do is put some more clarity around the services we offer. At the core of it is our strong focus on relationships. We have account managers and strategists recognized for both their creative and strategic effectiveness and that works across public relations, advertising and design.”

These days it’s sometimes difficult to see a clear line between those disciplines. Take PR and advertising, for instance. Looking at how agencies decide what categories to enter at awards shows, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between an ad campaign and a PR campaign. We asked McDonald how Rethink avoids that.

“Prior to working in advertising, I worked in PR,” he explains. “So I’m going to challenge you by saying that the way you positioned that question is a very advertising-centric way of looking at PR. And that’s because what you’re looking at is how can this brand gain attention in the public space. But there are also other reputational opportunities in terms of people, the brand topics, products and interests that any brand or business has that you won’t see at an advertising award show.