Most Read of 2024: Canada's Biggest Stories

This past January, the PWHL dropped the puck on its first-ever season, and has seen quite the surge in popularity since. Unfortunately however, awareness of individual women athletes still isn’t what it should be, or could be. For a start, there’s a lack of equitable sports media coverage in North America, which really isn’t great. But on top of that, there’s the fact that the players’ names – one of the most marketable parts of the jersey – often end up obscured, should the individual have long hair. To this end, on International Women’s Day, Rethink announced that Molson Coors had sponsored the space on the back of each jersey above the number, pushing teams to move their players’ names below and into much more consistently visible territory as a result.

When initially launching the first edition of this article in 2022, we weren’t expecting such a large number of contributions, or such positive feedback. So, it only seemed right to do it again this past year… but this time as the start of a new annual feature. After all, who doesn’t love a piece that spotlights up-and-coming talent, is chock full of amazing work, and which, in a few years time, will have featured some of the most established names within the Canadian ad industry? Really, this one’s placement on the list speaks for itself. (Come back two years from now and we’ll see if it aged well!)

While the execution of this campaign didn’t actually take place in Canada, once again, Rethink’s Canadian office finds itself on this list for leveraging the insight that 88% of people prefer HEINZ’ ketchup over other brands’ when eating out. Of course, not every restaurant actually serves Heinz – which the brand felt was an absolute calamity – and so the two remedied this by taking to the streets of Chicago to install smackable boards capable of dispensing HEINZ Ketchup. Inspired by the classic way people smack ketchup bottles to get out the last of the good stuff, each was deliberately placed in front of a restaurant that doesn’t serve HEINZ – a nice and simple remedy to an egregious oversight, undoubtedly.

As fans of the TV hit ‘Schitt’s Creek’ know, father-son duo Eugene and Dan Levy are absolutely hilarious. On the other hand, the subject of banking often finds itself in the opposite boat, and so EQ Bank realised the clear solution was to balance the scale by pairing the two together. Of course, just throwing in celebrities to shamelessly plug a product wouldn’t work, which The Hive realised, and so it decided to centre the writing around the wholly relatable subject of child-parent finance talks. Playing off the theme of Eugene invading Dan’s home (and eating his snacks), the work shines a light on the fact that many Canadians are still with the bank their parents originally signed them up for as kids, and that it might be worth looking a little more closely at whether this was the right decision for them.

If you click this link and the piece struggles to load, take that as a good thing. Sure, you won’t be able to immediately review all the good work Canada was awarded for at the 2024 Cannes Lions festival, but that’s only because there’s so much of it – a historical best, in fact. To give a specific number, the country’s creatives brought home a grand total of 66 Lions, including two Grands Prix – all of which can be re-celebrated (with credits), as so many of our readers have clearly done over this past year.

It’s universally understood within the trade press that some names carry a large amount of click power. And, if you haven’t guessed by now, Caeleigh Sims is clearly one of them. Discussing her career, valuable lessons learned, and the ever-evolving hunt for inspiration, this short but sweet feature with the DAC Toronto marketing and communications specialist made a huge splash, bringing eyes from all over to why she believes one should always “Be a sponge, be a sponge, be a sponge.”

While cannabis sales in Canada have been legal for a few years now, cannabis advertising still isn’t. In fact, not only did the government pass the 'Canadian Cannabis Act' which strictly prohibits any advertising that shows products, people, paraphernalia, implies effects, or shows the inside of a store, but social platforms and other media channels also have extensive systems in place to screen out cannabis advertising. So, what’s a cannabis business supposed to do in order to promote itself? As it turns out, partner up with Angry Butterfly, which is exactly what Stok’d did in a clever campaign for… multiple businesses in close proximity to its locations. Cheekily emphasising each’s status as a next-door neighbour to one of the dispensary’s branches, it proved just the ticket for skirting around the country’s policies and bringing new business to various stores around the city.

As journalists, it’s often the expectation that we stay out of the headlines, and instead seek to shine the light on other, far bigger names. That being said, there were a few days this year where somehow, I ended up being one of the biggest news stories in Canadian advertising. To be honest, I really didn’t expect an op-ed I wrote about coming out, the trans experience, and why a certain piece of advertising resonated with me so deeply that I couldn’t bring myself to watch it again (in spite of its quality), to get this kind of viewership, but it was supremely validating. I’m not going to attempt to summarise it here, so instead, I’d like to just take this moment to thank everyone who read my story and helped it earn a place on this year’s list. I really appreciate the local industry for supporting and accepting me as, well, me.

If you follow the NBA, you’re probably familiar with the meme of players going on vacation to Cancun after being eliminated from the playoffs. It’s a joke that’s well-referenced from the basketball court to press conferences and interviews, but travel agency Skyscanner and Courage took things to the next level by bringing out-of-home advertising into play. Purchasing a 100 foot billboard outside the Crypto.com Arena ahead of the playoff game between the Dallas Mavericks and the LA Clippers, the brand took some shots at the eventual runners-up with an advertisement that read ‘Dallas to Cancun. For great flights to Cancun, visit Skyscanner.’. Talk about a spicy way to make an impression, which, as the piece’s viewership indicates, made quite the splash.

The most-read ‘Behind the Work’ to come out of Canada in 2024, this interview saw director Dan French sit down with LBB to discuss his recent collaboration with Impossible Studios for Meridian Credit Union. Going over everything about the production, from storyboarding to shooting and location scouting in Lithuania, it seems that viewers were keen to find out just what it takes to technically execute a world where people are reduced to nothing but numbers. (Although admittedly, some of this might just be keen viewers looking for Dan’s cleverly hidden Easter eggs; we promise they’re worth the effort!)