Browsing: John St

News
Empower up
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Canadian agency John St has developed a reputation for skewering the latest marketing trends with its parody videos. So far it’s taken aim at click farming, real-time marketing, fear-inducing experiential and the internet’s undying love of cats. And now it’s released another gem showing how it can co-opt the idea of female empowerment that brands like Dove and Always have tapped into and prey on female insecurities to help sell more stuff.

News
Canadian agencies indulge in some creative self-flagellation
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While most in this industry take their roles very seriously and firmly believe in the commercial value of creativity, there is also a self-awareness that allows them to poke fun at themselves from time to time, as evidenced by last year’s brilliant Axis campaign. And to celebrate Strategy magazine’s Agency of the Year Awards in Canada, it asked some of the finalists to show off their creativity—and, in doing so, many of them decided to take aim at the ridiculousness of their own realm.

News
John St’s latest industry prod puts real-time in the firing line
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Some believe there’s no bigger sucker than a marketer who thinks they’re missing out on a trend. And Toronto agency John St has managed to illustrate that by gently skewering its own industry and the lemming-like traits of those who inhabit it with a series of very funny clips about catvertising, making things go viral and exFEARiential marketing. And its latest effort, Reactvertising, continues that trend. John St creative Jacob Greer answers a few queries about the success of its comical self-promotional strategy.

Opinion
The furry future of advertising
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Debate about the changing agency model has been raging for a while now. Some indie up-and-comers believe smaller is better, more efficient and less archaic. While bigger full-service multinationals believe the do-it-all-under-the-one-roof approach still works best. Turns out both models are wrong, as this video about the future of advertising made by Toronto agency John St shows.