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$Agency Profile: TBWA\NEBOKO thumbnail$

Agency Profile: TBWA\NEBOKO

Amsterdam is known far too often for its red light district and lenient marijuana laws, and not often enough for its stunning architecture, art and incredible quality of life. In a new industrial area of the city, a creative atmosphere surrounded by water (as much of Amsterdam is, with its interconnected water highway of canals) and host to scads of agencies, television production and film companies, sits TBWA\NEBOKO.

Agency Profile: CARTEBLANCHE

It is not by coincidence that one of Quebec’s up-and-coming agencies is located on one of Montreal’s most renowned streets. Boulevard Saint-Laurent used to mark the divide between English and French-speaking Montreal, but now that we can all play nice in the sandbox of language and linguistics, Saint-Laurent is known for neater things. Like the path it takes directly through some of Montreal’s funkiest neighbourhoods, from Old Montreal to Little Italy, with Chinatown, the Plateau and others in between.

CARTEBLANCHE is just south of Little Italy on Saint-Laurent. Inside the agency, the atmosphere is fresh and uncluttered. There is no reception, so I was greeted by the incredible fact that “CARTEBLANCHE” is written across five walls facing the door in a three-dimensional mind trip.

Agency Profile: CloudRaker

“You cannot possibly comment on the state of the ad industry in Canada without visiting Montreal” was a chorus I heard again, and again, and again in Toronto, the most recent leg in my Saturn Return Project world tour. “You’re going there, too, right?”

How could I not? Not only the home and headquarters of IHAVEANIDEA, Montreal is the heart of French-speaking Quebec, the heart of the province, and also the heart of the culture and the heart of the ad industry français. Most shops in English-speaking Canada have at least a partner, if not an outpost, if not a full-blown office in Montreal to ensure that their communications resonate with all Canadians, including their crazy cousins in Quebec.

Shops like CloudRaker have their roots exclusively planted in Montreal. A truly bi-lingual agency, CloudRaker has one foot on both sides of the language divide, though in fact, there is no divide.

Agency Profile: Potter Ruiz

When you think of the city of Boston, what are some of the things that come to mind? There’s the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Red Sox, the Boston Celtics, there’s Boston baked beans. There’s Harvard, there’s MIT, there’s New England clam chowder. And of course the region is famous for its rich Latino culture.

Wait, what?

Okay, okay, replace “Latino” with “Irish-American” and you might be onto something, but Boston isn’t particularly famous for a large Latino community. While a city like not-too-far New York has a population where more than a quarter claim some Hispanic or Latino heritage, up here in considerably pastier New England, census numbers put their numbers at less than 8%.

Perfect place to start a Hispanic agency, no?

Agency Profile: Captains of Industry

Boston is one of the oldest cities in North America, and it’s evident nearly everywhere you go. No fancy grid system for the oldest parts of town, that’s too newfangled 18th century for most folk. The streets seem to careen in whatever direction they wish, and smack dab in the middle of them all is Union Street, said to be the oldest continuously used street in the US. On that small, unassuming lane you’ll find the Bell In Hand, the oldest tavern in the US; The Union Oyster House, the oldest restaurant in the US; and the original location of the Green Dragon Tavern, “the headquarters of the Revolution.”

Agency Profile: Leo Burnett Toronto

Many of ihaveanidea’s longtime followers know that although we are currently headquartered in the eclectic city of Montreal, Canada, we were “born” in Toronto (literally, in my case). We started our careers on the Toronto ad scene, and thus we have always been pretty familiar with the various shops in town. But we have been in “la belle province” for a number of years now, and everybody knows that a few years in the ad biz can see an eternity of changes.

Agency Profile: GSD&M

For many people, their “glory days” or “discovery years” came went they first went away for college. Some people wish they could go back to those days, and a precious few, well, they enjoyed their college town so much that they never left.

Such was the case when a number of graduates of University of Texas at Austin decided that they loved working together and living in the state capital so much that they didn’t want to leave. Instead, they took their new-found school smarts and in 1971, the team did the most logical thing they could think of — they started a little advertising agency.

Agency Profile: Saatchi & Saatchi Toronto

The Toronto offices of Saatchi & Saatchi have always held a special place in the hearts of us at IHAVEANIDEA; Nat Salguiero, IHAVEANIDEA’s editor, had an art director internship there, and one of the site’s earliest, most ardent supporters was the agency’s CD at the time, a crazy-in-a-good-way Argentine named Mariano Favetto. The Saatchi office was located in King James Place, a strip of 19th century buildings near King and Church Streets. This locale put them away from most of the multinationals, not just in physical geography, but in architecture. No gleaming office tower for the Saatchi of old, but rather a structure that some liken to the innards of an old battleship, with many small, compartmentalized offices

Agency Profile: Grip Limited

For those who are unfamiliar with how Grip Ltd. came into being, it is a tale that turned a lot of heads and dropped a lot of jaws in the Canadian marketing and advertising scene, and surprisingly it goes back much, much farther than most people realize.

While Grip Ltd. the agency opened its doors in 2002, the name of the shop has a much longer history, stretching back to the late 19th century. Grip actually started out as a company that produced an eponymous weekly humour magazine back in the 1870s.

Agency Profile: 160over90

Way back in the ancient, olden days of the advertising industry (“ancient and olden” meaning ten or so years ago) a ‘branding agency’ was seen by many as just a fancy way of saying “we design logos and packages and other print stuff.” Nowadays, advertising and design has changed so dramatically that few people know where the branding ends and the ads begin. What is the difference between a traditional agency and a branding agency in 2011? You’d be hard pressed to come up with a good answer.

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