Exploring McCann Canada’s 2024 Effies Supremacy
While there’s been much award talk in Canada as of late, with both The Immortal Awards and The ADCC awards taking place within the past week, it’s still far too soon for the buzz to have died down about the winners of this year’s Effie Awards. After all, it’s hard to overlook the fact that McCann Canada, along with its client Kids Help Phone (KHP), made a clean sweep of the competition, bringing home not only the Grand Effie for their combined efforts on the ‘Feel Out Loud’ campaign, but also Agency of the Year and Marketer for the Year respectively.
However, while ‘dominance’ might be the apt word to describe what they’ve achieved this year, such results simply do not materialise overnight. The Effies serve as the hallmark for the country’s best strategic work, which makes it apparent just how much thought and effort goes into creating winning campaigns. You need great partnerships – of which McCann had seven award-winning ones in this year’s competition – you need to put in countless hours to ensure your approaches are cutting edge, and the work itself needs to resonate.
Yet, while the steps are clear, oddly, the execution is simultaneously nebulous. Sure, everyone knows the bar is high in every way possible, but what does this actually look like in terms of execution? What separated McCann’s efforts and approach from everyone else’s this year? That’s exactly what LBB’s Jordan Won Neufeldt wanted to find out, and so she sat down with McCann Canada’s chief strategy officer AJ Jones, as well as Kids Help Phone’s SVP of brand storytelling and communications, Rebecca Stutley, for a chat.
LBB> AJ, congratulations again on your recent Effies sweep! What does this achievement mean to you, as well as McCann Canada as a whole?
AJ> Thanks Jordan! McCann has been gathering some momentum recently so this is further evidence that we are a contemporary force in Canadian advertising. The Effie Awards do hit differently though! Having worked in multiple markets around the world, I’ve seen Effies consistently put on a pedestal, especially amongst strategists, as being the show that really matters.
Specifically, our industry seems to be in a state of existential crisis more often than it isn’t, so the Effies act as a reminder that, collectively, we know what we’re doing. Our industry is making things happen in business and in culture at large. So, naturally, being recognised as Agency of the Year at the Effies means so much to so many people across the agency, and to our clients who know their businesses are in safe hands.
LBB> To what do you attribute your success? What went into making McCann Canada the agency of the year, the Grand Effie winner, and having your client win Marketer of the Year?
AJ> I think the biggest reason for our success is that we didn’t set out to win Effie Agency of the Year. Instead, we have built a culture of effectiveness that is so strong that even without winning the Grand Effie, we would have been Agency of the Year. We have both breadth and depth in our pursuit of creative effectiveness, we have so many clients represented amongst the winners, but also a real variety in categories. As you know, we ground everything in truths. We set out to uncover compelling truths and tell them in the best way possible; if we do that consistently, we know our work will deliver impact.
Grand Effie’s are certainly earned, not awarded. This Kids Help Phone (KHP) Grand Effie is probably less blood, sweat and tears, and more belief, authenticity and well… tears. The worlds of young people are complex, the world of mental health is multifaceted, and when those two collide, as they do for KHP, the power of simple authenticity is not to be frowned upon. In ‘Feel Out Loud’, KHP has built something that hasn’t just reached hard-to-reach young people, but has connected with them, driving a 17% increase in youth’s emotional connection and a 16% increase in youth usage of KHP. That, plus a team that poured care and attention into how they crafted an Effie case made for a powerful combo – shoutout to Josh, Ally and Emily. It was really nice to see some of the Grand Effie jury saying how well crafted the case was.
Finally, Marketer of the Year is really a testament to KHP’s belief in the full potential of ‘Feel Out Loud’. It avoided the pitfalls of thinking campaign-or-marketing-centric, and pushed all of its agencies to deliver against ‘Feel Out Loud’ in consistently surprising fashion, all while showing up in the worlds of young people in feeling ways.
LBB> Building on this, let’s talk more about your strong client partnerships – seven of which were awarded Effies of various tiers. What factors enable you to have such a consistent output across the board when it comes to strategy?
AJ> I might be biased, but having the best strategy team around certainly hasn’t harmed our efforts. The way they balance the grace and grit of strategy is a joy to be around. We have a strategy team who is passionate about creative problem solving, and knows the role they can play in helping us achieve that. But, our recent Effies success certainly isn’t just down to the strategists – it’s down to a collective deep focus on understanding our clients’ worlds, and how to measure them.
Really it is about discipline and trust – the rigour that goes into the process and thus the resulting trust. It’s not revolutionary, but there is an alchemy in combining that rigour with strong relationships across teams and clients.
LBB> Of course, we should absolutely talk about the relationship between McCann and KHP. What drives this partnership’s success?
AJ> I’d say we have a very human relationship with KHP, and that we use that humanity to make calculated decisions. KHP was actually my first McCann Canada pitch, and I remember saying then that it would be a real privilege to work on the business, but also a slightly terrifying responsibility to know what was at stake. I don’t think we’ve ever lost sight of the impact KHP can have for young people across Canada, but we’ve also not allowed ourselves to be paralysed by the fear of that responsibility.
Rebecca> We are a data organisation as well as a feelings organisation. So is McCann. Our relationship is built on such strong foundations. From the minute we met on Zoom during the pandemic, the drive was unstoppable, and the passion was pure. The entire team of caring adults between our organisations passionately collaborate and create so that young people may thrive in their worlds.
LBB> How is this embodied by the ‘Feel Out Loud’ campaign? In your opinion, what elements of strategic thinking enabled it to become a winner?
AJ> As Josh Hansen (SVP strategy) would say, ‘the beauty of ‘Feel Out Loud’ is in the fact that the creative expression is a unique manifestation of the core truth about KHP’s services’.
In many ways, the impact of this campaign isn’t down to any particular moment of genius, but how precision enabled us to unlock possibility. The precision of knowing we were fighting the perception that KHP is a ‘911 for kids’ allowed us to explore a range of possibilities of what KHP could be if not that. ‘Feel Out Loud’ was so precise in its focus that it demanded we explore ways to connect with feelings – many of which are felt deeply – as a comms philosophy rather than as touchpoints or life stages.
Rebecca> ‘Feel Out Loud’ is a platform built on the idea that everyone has feelings, and every feeling deserves to be heard. It aims to create a world where youth feel safe to free themselves from the feelings that weigh them down by expressing them to KHP.
This invitation is empowering and destigmatising because it says ‘there's no problem too big or feeling too small’. For 35 years, KHP has provided support by phone, chat or text. By showing up in more places where youth feel, question, or struggle in their worlds, ‘Feel Out Loud’ fostered an empathetic and emotional connection and deepened the trust young people place in our organisation.
LBB> And did you expect it to be as successful as it was?
AJ> I don’t know if success can ever be guaranteed; I’ve watched enough sports to know that even the best laid plans can crumble pretty quickly. But, the beauty of ‘Feel Out Loud’ is in how intentionally flexible it is and how reactive it can be. It is an enduring platform that can be whispered in a changing room or sung from the rooftops with equal impact, and we knew right from the start that committing to positioning KHP as a place to ‘give your feelings a place to go’ could be fruitful for the organisation.
LBB> Notably, on the night, there was some discussion around the idea of there being too much short-term, nonprofit work in Canada. Do you agree with this sentiment? And what do you think makes this campaign an exception?
AJ> Firstly, I don’t think there can ever be too much great work. Canada is, so far as I can tell, doing more great work than ever before, and that is to be celebrated. To some extent, the problems facing the world and Canadians are bigger, scarier and more real than ever, so not using our collective powers of creativity for good is a strange argument to me. I think a thriving industry is one that makes real work that drives real impact – across a range of sectors, audiences and cultural cornerstones.
I think it is also worth noting that the Grand Effie this year came from the Youth Marketing category. Each of the four Gold winners represented a different category, and there was one silver for non-profit. If anything, I feel buoyed by the breadth of categories represented amongst the winners.
All in all, the Effies do nothing if not focus our minds on measurement, and the more industries are represented, the more we can be exposed to different measurement frameworks and other metrics. Truly, the Effies are a real learning opportunity for clients and us as agencies.
LBB> With these wins under your belt, will it be reinforcing your strategic approach at McCann going into the future? And how will it impact your relationship with KHP?
AJ> The reality is that the work that goes into making these winning cases is, by our industry terms, old. So, we’re already well onto the next things, building out these enduring brand platforms further and uncovering new ways to deliver ‘truth well told’ for our clients. So, yes, this only serves to reinforce our strategic approach.
As for KHP, hopefully more of the same! We plan to continue our pursuit of understanding the experiences of young people across Canada and the challenges they face, to unlock interesting ways in which KHP can show up to help them thrive in their worlds. We’ve also been focusing on comms planning recently, and will be continuing to build our creative muscle, both of which will help us live and leverage ‘truth well told’ in new ways.
LBB> Finally, will you be looking to defend your titles next year? And if so, how will you be getting started?
AJ> There isn’t a whole lot of time to look backwards at what has happened, so whilst we’ll take the learnings from these cases into our future endeavours, I don’t see it as defending our titles. But I know we will be attacking the 2025 Effies with as much enthusiasm as we did in 2024!
