What’s up at Touché!

Touché! and its clients BRP, Canadian Tire, Préma-Québec, HSBC and the Quebec Milk Producers are nominated 12 times at prestigious international Festival of Media.

BRP's Uncharted Playgrounds campaign received five nominations in the Digital, Local Campaign, Communication Strategy, Engagement and Social Media categories.

HSBC's Punch Above the Weigh campaign collected two nominations in the Data and Real-Time Marketing categories.

Canadian Tire’s Show me the Money campaign was nominated in the Event and Social Media categories.

BRP's Every Signal Count campaign received one nomination in the Return on Investment category.

Quebec Milk Producers’ Cute Kids to the Rescue campaign was nominated in the Integrated Campaign category.

Finally, Préma-Québec's The 1.8 Pound Book campaign was nominated in the Integrated Campaign category.

The full shortlisted cases can be found here : https://festivalofmedia.com/fomg/festival-of-media-global-2023-shortlist-2

Winners will be announced on June 1st.

Touché! is proud to announce the appointment of Samantha Kelley as President of Touché! Canada. For his part, Charles Etienne Morier becomes President of the Montreal branch of Omnicom Media Group (OMG Montreal).

Reporting to Karine Courtemanche, CEO of Touché! Canada, PHD Canada and OMG Montreal, Kelley will work to promote Touché! at the local, national, and international level in creativity and innovation while more specifically leading the Toronto office.

Kelley joined Touché! in 2007. It’s while working on the account of Loblaws Canada that she really fell in love with the fast pace and constant evolution of retail. Samantha therefore made it her specialty and spent the next fifteen years on accounts such as Sport Chek, Mark's, Canadian Tire and Canada Post.

Her hard work opened the door to a position as Vice-President in strategy, then General Manager of Touché! Toronto before being named President of the agency in Canada. Samantha now divides her time between Toronto and Montreal.

Kelley comments: “I have a long love affair with Touché!. It is both a great honour and a great responsibility to take the reins of this great agency in Canada. Touché! has built over time a reputation as an innovative agency and I intend to maintain and amplify it!”

For his part, also reporting to Karine Courtemanche, Charles Etienne takes the reins of OMG Montreal as President. He will be responsible for defining and managing the group's organizational vision and operational strategy while promoting internal best practices for his teams and ensuring the deployment of OMG tools and new services.

Morier has also arrived at Touché! in 2007 where he contributed to creating the agency's digital offer and set up the SEM team. Charles Etienne's work has been recognized many times by the industry both in Canada and internationally. In 2018, Charles Etienne was appointed Senior Vice President of Operations for OMG Montreal, a role in which he ensures that the best processes and practices were put in place to generate success for the team and its clients and now becomes President.

Morier comments: “Over the past few years, I have had the chance to learn a lot through my journey within the group, by occupying several roles, but above all by being surrounded by the most talented people in the industry. Today, I am honoured to take on this role and grateful for the chance to guide our teams to create innovative new solutions and services that will address the disruptive forces of change that have become endemic to our industry. With the strength of OMG, the talent and expertise of our teams who are an integral part of our success, a unique culture and clients who trust us, we certainly have all the tools to enable us to create the future of the company.”

“We have a long tradition of growing our talent internally. It is therefore with pride that we welcome this new generation of presidents. Samantha and Charles Etienne represent the future of the media discipline. They lead our teams with passion, innovation and a deep sense of ethics. I could not be better surrounded for the growth of our agencies in Quebec and Canada.”, comments Karine Courtemanche.

For the first time in its history, Touché! is nominated in the Media Agency category at the prestigious Global Agency of the Year Awards by Campaign.

Campaign’s Global Agency of the Year competition is like no other awards show. Categories recognise talent, creativity, and effectiveness, but also consider a range of additional measures, such as new business performance, thought-leadership, innovation, culture, and values, to uncover the best all-round performers around the globe.

For the media category, agencies had to submit an application where the judges evaluated the following seven criteria:

• Intro to agency

• Client and work

• Business performance

• Leadership

• Talent

• Contribution

• Covid 19

This year, more than 123 companies from 21 countries entered Campaign’s fourth Global Agency of the Year Awards, which will award prizes across 34 categories this year.

Winners will be revealed in a virtual ceremony in May.

Click here to see the Global Agency of the Year 2023 shortlists in full.

After a successful year in 2022 for new business, Touché! continues its growth in the Canadian marketplace by pursuing its collaboration with Tourism Montreal and expanding its work with Metro inc. to include the English Canada in their duties.

Following a rigorous RFP and review process, Tourism Montreal has chosen to continue its collaboration with its media agency of the past ten years: Touché!. The agency will continue its work with Tourism Montreal and its various partners to promote Montreal as a destination of choice for Canadians, Americans and Europeans. Touché! will be responsible for the overall media strategy, planning, media buying and performance measurement.

"This is a pivotal time for Tourism Montreal as we navigate a new reality for global travelers. Touché! is the partner of choice to support us in our performance-driven ambition. Their in-depth knowledge of the tourism industry and their experienced team in media strategy and analytics make Touché! an essential ally for Tourism Montreal." explains Sylvie Charette, Chief Marketing Officer at Tourism Montreal. 

2022 will finally have been a great year for tourism in Montreal, despite the challenges. The teams are already working on preparing the 2023 summer campaigns, with the development of several new markets, such as Western Canada and the United States.

Touché! has also extended the scope of work with its long-time client METRO Inc. to now include the Ontario Market. Touché! now acts as the Agency of Record for all METRO banners in Quebec and Ontario. The agency is responsible for media strategy, planning and buying for traditional and digital placements for awareness and consideration. Both Toronto and Montreal offices work on the account.

"We are very proud to continue the adventure with Tourism Montreal and expand our scope with Metro", adds Karine Courtemanche, Chief Executive Officer at Touché!. "We look forward to continuing putting our expertise and creativity to work for our clients to drive business success."

Last night at the Media Innovation Awards, Touché! was once again recognized as the best agency in media creativity and the most awarded in the country.

The agency gatherered more than 14 awards in 13 categories, including the Best of Show awarded to the campaign of the year for BRP-X Uncharted Playgrounds.

Unchartered Playgrounds also won three other gold trophies in the Consumer Engagement, Automotive and Website/Microsite categories.

Exceldor, Atmosphere, Canadian Tire, HSBC and Can-Am Off-Road also received trophies during the ceremony.

For all the details: https://mediainnovationawards.strategyonline.ca/Winners/Winner/2022

New forward-looking branding

After 27 years of award-winning campaigns and valuable collaboration, Touché! wanted to raise the profile of everything it has worked to build: a solid leadership team, talented experts who constantly hone their skills, a roster of some 40 exciting clients, over 450 national and international industry awards, and the ability to masterfully harness the combined power of data and creativity. 

Against the backdrop of a constantly shifting media landscape, Touché! is also looking more than ever toward the future. For this reason, the agency decided to refresh its branding with the help of lg2 and today is unveiling a new, modernized brand identity focused on growth, acceleration and creativity.

 "Just like a person, the face of a brand changes as it grows. We've come a long way since Touché!'s first visual identity, whose explosion-like design illustrated our initial goal of conquest and impact, both for our start-up and for our clients. Some 27 years and several iterations later, the new face we're showing the world is a stark contrast: established, fresh and forward-looking. It is also built around precision and sophistication—the new hallmarks of our service offering—and our ever-present ambition to push the limits of possibilities and help our people and our clients grow. Long live Touché!"

-      Alain Desormiers, Founder, Touché!

Redefining creativity to drive business success of its clients

The new branding emphasizes the agency's promise to all of its clients every day: that it will redefine media creativity and innovation to produce meaningful business results and game-changing campaigns that strike a chord with people. Touché!'s recipe for success is simple: a corporate vision that reflects today's media realities and anticipates tomorrow's possibilities, fueled by data and driven by creativity.

At Touché!, this same promise also extends to the agency's talent. That's why the agency always seeks out new challenges, new expertise, new training, new partnerships and anything else employees need to build a successful career.

Discover more at www.touchemedia.com

"Now, more than ever, Touché! is looking toward the future and preparing for the challenges of tomorrow. We're integrating cutting-edge technology to redefine the concept of media creativity and meet the complex challenges of data and e-commerce that don't fit neatly into traditional media planning models. We want our branding to reflect our focus on the future and the growth that has defined our organization since the very beginning."

-      Karine Courtemanche, CEO, Touché!

Strategic rebranding expertise

Touché!'s unique approach to media—fueled by data and driven by creativity—earned it an unrivalled reputation in the industry. However, its brand ecosystem was not up to date with its current service offering. That's why Touché! hired creative agency LG2 to refresh its brand identity and make it reflect Touché!'s considerable stature.

Ready to tackle the challenges of tomorrow

For the rebranding exercise, LG2 reimagined all of Touché!'s touchpoints using a multidisciplinary approach that combines design and digital experience. Two major transformations came out of this rethink: the brand platform and the revamp of its digital platform, which now offer an overview of all of the agency's expertise, specialties and top employer brand. The transformation reflects the agency's new reality and highlights its key advantages over the competition, namely its solid skills, technological tools, entrepreneurial spirit, creative positioning and talented experts.

For a 12th consecutive year, Touché! is one of the finalists in the Media Agency of the Year award by Strategy.

This category puts a spotlight on media agencies that have demonstrated unique, successful tactics and smart integration of media channels. Each applicant was required to submit three campaigns they felt highlighted this criteria, and their bodies of work were evaluated by a jury of nine industry experts from brands, media companies, consultancies and fellow media agencies.

After two years of virtual events, Agency of the Year will be returning to an in-person gala for 2022, taking place on Nov. 1 at Koerner Hall in Toronto.

For more details: https://strategyonline.ca/2022/09/08/agency-of-the-year-2022-shortlists-media/

Source : Strategy

Photo : Strategy

Karine, CEO of Touché!, has been selected as a member of the jury for the Festival of Media Awards 2022.

Along with the other 24 judges, she will evaluate and choose the best North American campaigns of the year.

The results will be announced on December 8.

Hosted in May, the 16th iteration of the Festival of Media Global Awards recognized the best campaigns in the media industry.

Touché! won a gold for its Bugs Out! campaign for its Wilson client in the prestigious Best Use of Data & Insight category.

In this campaign, Wilson and Touché! built a solid data ecosystem that could predict insect invasions in Canada. With a well-integrated partnership with the Weather Network, a prospecting strategy was developed, which connected to multiple data points and delivered a customized message to each Canadians, based on the level of infestation risk in their neighborhood.

Wilson is in the top 100 most awarded campaign in the world, according to WARC Media 100.

Touché! also won a silver in the Best Use of Digital Media – Web category for the campaign Search Beats Global Supply Crisis for BRP/Sea-Doo, as well as a bronze for its Camping Rituals campaign for FGL Sports/Atmosphère client in the Best Campaign for a Local Brand category.

With these 3 awards, Touché! is the most awarded Canadian agency of this year’s Festival of Media.

In a new analysis of global media agency groups from leading research and advisory firm Forrester, Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE: OMC) received the highest possible scores in the retail media, commerce media, intelligence and insights, and optimization criteria; as well as in the operations and innovation roadmap criteria.  

The Forrester Wave™: Global Media Management Services analyzes the seven most significant global media management service providers against a 19-criterion evaluation across three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence. Designed to help CMO professionals select the right provider for their needs, the report assesses the media groups under four designations: Leaders, Strong Performers, Contenders, and Challengers.   

With the highest possible scores in six criteria, and with the highest score in the current offering category, Omnicom Media Group was one of only two providers among the seven evaluated to earn designation as a "Leader" in the report. 

Describing OMG as "a good fit for advertisers that require bespoke, technology-literate, global media teams" the report also noted that "… the agency scales consumer empathy and understanding into quantifiable attention metrics against which advertisers can plan, buy, and measure.  To achieve this vision, the company deploys its Omni audience planning portal to power better audience, client, and employee experiences."

The report also states that "OMG's strength lies in initiatives to innovate its Omni portal, such as customized client workflow integrations, audience data integrations; marketing automation partnerships with Google; and efforts to unite media, e-commerce, and shopper tactics."

This finding is borne out by a steady drumbeat of  first-mover product and partnership  announcements from OMG in 2022, including a multi-year agreement with Affinity Solutions to integrate retailer purchase transactions into Omni; an enterprise-wide  partnership with Firework, the world's largest livestream commerce and shoppable video platform, to  deliver livestream shopping solutions directly to Omnicom clients' websites; the industry's first programmatic marketplace for point-of-purchase screens; and the Supply Chain IQ Score, which gives media planners day-to-day visibility into SKU inventory data at the physical store, digital shelf, and inventory-in-transit levels, enabling media investment to be shifted away from low inventory products in real time.

Most recently, OMG dominated the news cycle at last month's  Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, announcing a series of first mover strategic partnerships with retail media networks including Walmart Connect,  Instacart, and Kroger Precision Marketing. 

"As the only agency group to have earned the highest possible score in all three of the criteria that we believe best represent the future of media investment and management - retail media, commerce media, and intelligence & insights - and as a group that also received the highest possible scores in two criteria that we think are critical differentiators in selecting an agency partner –operations and innovation road map – OMG is clearly a leader in today's marketplace," says OMG CEO Florian Adamski. "More importantly, as we continue to expand our capabilities and automate our infrastructure, and to build new products and partnerships, we are assuring that we and our clients will remain leaders -   today, tomorrow and beyond."

Receiving Forrester's  designation as a "Leader" is the latest good news for OMG, which last month  saw its largest agency, OMD Worldwide, take Media Network of the Year honors at the Cannes Lions festival; while PHD was awarded the $500 million  Restaurant Brands International (RBI) business, which includes the  Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Horton's chains.