Creativity still brings value to this industry. It sounds obvious to anyone grinding away at a creative agency, but it was an outlook Cameron Stark and Meghan Kraemer found lacking – or perhaps forgotten altogether – when they co-founded Hard Work Club in 2021. Stark, who is also the Toronto-based agency’s head of strategy, took it a step further in a recent interview, saying that “as an industry, we’ve been doing so many things to devalue creativity.”

In founding the indie agency, the pair set out to reassert that creative work isn’t just art, it’s essential business value. “We wanted to say, ‘creative work is hard work, it’s valuable work, and eventually you get to the point where it is work that will return value to your business – if you’re willing to invest in it,’” Stark says.

That belief has defined Hard Work Club’s approach: one grounded in ambition, collaboration and long-term partnerships. And it turns out, brands are willing to invest. For some of Hard Work Club’s biggest clients, they’ve made it clear they want to take risks and execute boundary-pushing work. “It definitely requires a values alignment to embrace the kind of stuff that we think works,” Stark says of the client relationships that make their best work possible.