The ICA has revamped its long-standing Creative Leadership Group, created to bring agency creative leads together to discuss issues of the day and drive creative excellence. This will now be known as the Creative Power Group and one of the first initiatives to come out of this is the launch of the Creative Power List.
Well, one recurring issue is the value of creativity and how it is recognized. This includes the relationship between awards and recognising/measuring agency excellence while assessing the value, cost and impact of awards, especially given creative leaders have questioned the number of awards in all territories globally, as well as here in Canada.
To address this, the Creative Power Group, working closely with leading audit, tax and consulting firm, RSM Canada, has built a transparent ranking system of Canada’s agencies that helps them to decide which awards to go for and what that could mean for their national standing.
As well as setting up the Creative Power List, the Creative Power Group will be building stronger relationships with each of the international shows, looking to improve training for judges and provide greater understanding of how each show works. The ICA has already become the Canadian judge nominating partner for the D&AD, as part of its continuing to build a strong relationship between Canada and the international shows.
The Creative Power Group, alongside RSM Canada, set about building the mechanics of the first ever Creative Power List – deciding which national and international awards should matter, what they are worth and how to create a transparent scoring system. Full details on this methodology and scoring system are available here.
Based on 2019 performance. BBDO tops the list, followed by FCB/Six and Cossette. A 2020 ranking won’t be available due to the ICA’s call to not support awards in the wake of COVID-19 but the same scoring mechanic will now be in place for 2021, so that the industry can transparently see what is on offer for their overall ranking from each award show.
So, here is the first-ever Top 20 of the Creative Power List based on Canadian performance in 2019.
For the Creative Power List Methodology click here and for the full Top 150 click here.
| Ranking | Company | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BBDO | 5253 |
| 2 | FCB/Six | 3419 |
| 3 | Cossette (Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver) | 3145 |
| 4 | Rethink (Montreal/Toronto/Vancouver) | 3128 |
| 5 | Leo Burnett | 2178 |
| 6 | Jam3 | 1995 |
| 7 | Bensimon Byrne | 1923 |
| 8 | Taxi | 1721 |
| 9 | FCB | 1599 |
| 10 | LG2 (Montreal/Toronto) | 1513 |
| 11 | Ogilvy | 1455 |
| 12 | Zulu Alpha Kilo | 1308 |
| 13 | Anomaly | 1205 |
| 14 | Bensimon Byrne/Narrative | 1198 |
| 15 | john st. | 1125 |
| 16 | Sid Lee (Montreal/Toronto) | 786 |
| 17 | Grey | 710 |
| 18 | DDB (Edmonton/Toronto/Vancouver) | 541 |
| 19 | National Film Board of Canada | 450 |
| 20 | Juniper Park\TBWA | 385 |
Please note that where there are multiple locations listed in parentheses this is where individual offices have been combined for the overall Canadian score.
The Creative Power Group welcomes feedback on this initiative and its methodology, it is created by the industry for the industry. Please email any feedback for consideration to scott@theica.ca.
