WAX Partnership solicits top talent for growing agency
Hiring to fill new positions in advertising agencies is an encouraging sign the economy is picking up in this city.
WAX Partnership, busy enough to need copywriters, an art director and a strategist, has come up with a tongue-in-cheek idea to attract creative talent.
After Publicis Groupe CEO Arthur Sadoun announced his agency network would take a year-long break from entering award shows, WAX is offering a “One-Year Break” to Groupe’s creative staff.
“The pursuit of awards is a huge motivator. To have to take a year off from entering award shows can be a career setback for many young creatives,” said Nick Asik, the newly appointed creative director at WAX.
And, WAX knows a thing or two about the importance of awards shows.
Design director Monique Gamache recently spent a week in San Francisco judging the Communications Art design annual; the only Canadian judge on this year’s design jury. Gamache has become a recognized authority, invited to judge international competitions at the Art Directors Club Awards in New York, the D&AD Awards in London and the Cannes Lions, where she was the only female judge. Later this month she will be in the judge’s seat again, this time for Strategy’s Design Agency of the Year.
WAX believes in entering its best work and has been very successful against global competition.
Its annual report for the Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities was awarded a Silver Lion at Cannes and won the even more prestigious Black Pencil at the D&AD Awards; only the second Canadian agency to receive the honour.
The international attention WAX has garnered is good for the Calgary market, proving local brands don’t need to seek larger-market agencies to receive world-class work.
That’s a reason Asik returned to Calgary and WAX.
After graduating in Toronto and following an internship in Los Angeles, he came to Calgary to join WAX as a copywriter 12 years ago. The opportunity to work on big brands took him back to Ontario two years later.
Working at Taxi and later Zulu Alpha Kilo, Asik used his creative skills with brands like Bell, Coca-Cola, Corona, WestJet and Google but said he had to present through layers of corporate decision-makers.
In Calgary, WAX’s creative staff deal directly with clients.
President Dan Wright said the agency’s philosophy “combines the thoughtful craft of design with the creative chaos of advertising to create compelling stories that help build powerful brands.”
Wright and Gamache founded the agency in 2005, and it has retained some of its earliest clients, including Honens and Mitchell Eye Centre. Newer accounts include University District, Gabriella’s Kitchen and OPA! The agency is also helping Top Chef Canada winner Nicole Gomes expand her Cluck ‘n’ Cleaver brand across Canada.
Its search for additional staff has already brought responses from as far as Brazil, New York, London and Istanbul.
NEWS AND NOTES
Calgary author Peter McKenzie-Brown has published a history of Canada’s oilsands. Four years in the writing, Bitumen: The People, Performance and Passions Behind Alberta’s Oilsands is a story that dates back more than three centuries.