Winning awards can do a lot for an advertising agency, but they’re far from the only thing that matters. The real payoff is when people connect with
the work.

“We talk a lot about the value of awards,” says Ben Tarr, president of Leo in Canada. “The value of being recognized by your peers, of spotlighting your work in front of potential clients and of making your existing clients feel great. And it really does help us attract the best talent.”

Still, he says nothing compares to seeing an idea spill over into culture – and that’s been happening a lot at Leo lately.

For example, at a recent Toronto Blue Jays game Tarr attended with a client, two Blue Jays fans brought some unexpected attention to a campaign Leo created for Smucker’s Canada. It featured George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero – both Blue Jays stars – arguing over the best way to enjoy a sandwich: peanut butter on top (PB&J) or jam on top (J&PB). The spots aired so often during Jays broadcasts that two fans turned the debate into merch of their own, with a set of matching T-shirts that echoed the campaign – one emblazoned with PB&J and the other J&PB. When the camera landed on their shirts and the argument flashed across the Jumbotron, Tarr and his guest – Smucker’s Canada’s CMO, Gail Hollander – were stunned. (To top it off, the Blue Jays won the game with an epic grand slam home run.)

“It was a pretty remarkable night,” says Tarr, who was still glowing from the experience. “To see that happen was almost like a dream.”

But dream runs don’t happen overnight. Just a few years ago, Leo was in a slump. The agency wasn’t winning as many awards, clients were pulling more work in-house, and consulting and PR firms were encroaching on adland.

“As an agency, we were seeing a major disruption,” says Tarr. “But one of our core values is being open to ‘new.’ It means we’re always thinking about what’s next and how we need to evolve.”

Evolving meant new people and new skills. In came CCO Angus Tucker; creative director, innovation Adam Pickard; senior art director Shirley Xu Wang; and senior copywriter Marly Dichter.

The agency also added specialists outside the usual ad world, like senior strategist Sara Carpentier, whose PhD in cognitive neuroscience and background in behavioural economics gave campaigns added depth. It also meant getting closer to Canadians themselves. Since 2022, Leo has published The HumanKind Study – original research on issues such as finance, housing, health and climate change.