From: The Toronto Star (Wednesday March 10, 2010)
Vancouver ad agency to open T.O. office – Award-winning Rethink eyes nationwide profile
By Dana Flavelle Business Reporter
Independent Vancouver advertising agency Rethink Communications is moving into the big leagues, opening its first office in Toronto in a bid to capture more business.
The award-winning firm, whose ads for A&W and Mr. Lube have been a hit with viewers, says it was time to move up.
“We’ve grown as far as we can in Vancouver,” agency co-founder Chris Staples said in an interview Tuesday.
“There’s a ton of opportunity in Toronto. About 90 per cent of the marketing business in Canada is there.”
The move was overdue, Staples said. “We’ve had to turn down a lot of business from our national clients based in Toronto because we didn’t have an office there.”
Rethink’s national clients currently include Solo Mobile, Sympatico and Sobeys.
The Toronto office will have a strong digital capacity, Hegan said.
Rethink says it has succeeded by operating on a different business model from other agencies. As the number of media “channels” exploded in the past decade to include Facebook and Twitter as well as traditional TV and billboard ads, clients’ budgets remained the same, Staples said.
“We’re very different from other agencies. We don’t have divisions or silos. You get one account manager, who’s a generalist who knows how to do everything and they connect you with the specialists like Dre, who’s a digital specialist,” Staples said. “It’s a way more efficient system. There are fewer layers. Your dollar can stretch further.”
The agency offers a kind of performance guarantee, called the “Rethink Rebate,” which amounts to 5 per cent of its fee if certain targets aren’t achieved.
Rethink Toronto will be located at 110 Spadina Avenue.
For more information, visit: Rethink Toronto
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