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November 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Agency of the Year

Bronze - Taxi
Formidable fleet

by Carey Toane
page 35

Taxi has always been known for breaking the rules. After all, its motto is "doubt the conventional to create the exceptional." But what happens when unconventional suddenly becomes the convention? When big and small agencies alike are turning to non-traditional media, how do you maintain an edge?

If you're Taxi co-founder and chairman/CCO Paul Lavoie, you embrace the change. "I don't see that as competition, I see it as endorsing something that's healthy for the industry," he says. "Like I've said from day one, what's healthy for the industry is healthy for Taxi and vice versa. It just makes us relevant. We will stand out not by our philosophy, but by the work that we do."

Our judges noticed. The agency's sparkling creative returned the shop to medal standing, a place they'd become accustomed to after their record-breaking four-year Gold-winning streak from 2002 to 2005. (Last year they earned an Honourable Mention.) Judges also took note of the agency's penchant for successfully challenging convention - in its work for Reversa, for instance. "Beauty product advertising always plays in the same field of creativity," said AOY judge Nicolas Massey, co-founder/CD at Montreal's Amen. "For once, Reversa is taking us somewhere else. Great website and print work that gives the power to the ladies!" And Craig Redmond, CD at Grey Vancouver, gave tongue-in-cheek kudos to the agency's work for retailer Canadian Tire: "Taxi [has] defied the odds by doing good Canadian Tire ads."

On the home front, there have been some big shifts in the Taxi universe in recent months. CD Steve Mykolyn has become ECD, filling the shoes of Zak Mroueh, who will stay on till the end of the year. Another office opened in Vancouver (forming Taxi West with Calgary), where, in October, Lavoie's longtime dream of opening a café was realized when the right piece of real estate was finally found. Joining the ever-growing Taxi franchise is Taxi Film, launched a year ago and dedicated to creating short films and music videos directed by staffers. And Taxi Content recently opened for business to develop branded content in a variety of new media, and will work closely with existing TV and movie production unit Chokolat. All this is not unusual for an agency that continues to defy expectations. We say, score one for breaking the rules.

REVERSA

Dermtek's Reversa is a Canadian anti-aging beauty brand competing with global giants that have massive budgets for advertising and sampling, as well as highly trained sales forces. Reversa could not compete on that level, so Taxi took a different approach.

To get noticed in the fast-growing category, the agency decided not to follow the typical formula of featuring celebrities in double-page spreads and 30-second TV ads. To reach women over 40 who don't believe that beauty is the exclusive domain of women in their twenties, Taxi strayed from the science to focus on the consumer social benefits. The most important insight? These women are vibrantly sexual.

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