LPI Group achieves 30 years while growing in the pandemic
Calgary-based advertising agency has been adding new clients and hiring more staff
The first six months of the pandemic was a particularly tough time for advertising and creative agencies as many of their clients, uncertain of the future, put budgets on hold.
It was a tense time for many, but LPI Group not only got through it, the Calgary-based agency is celebrating its 30 years in business by adding new clients and hiring more staff.
“The pandemic has accelerated the transformation taking place in the shopper landscape, especially how, when and where shoppers engage with brands,” founder and chief executive
Craig Lindsay says.
“Our investment in talented people, combined with the adoption of new platforms and processes, has LPI Group positioned to build on our three-decade reputation in the post-pandemic marketplace.”
Lindsay co-founded the company in Edmonton with his brother, but after Scott was recruited by a client, Craig relocated LPI Group to Calgary some 24 years ago.
In a business noted for a number of staff changes, Lindsay is proud of his longtime employees, including Ken Youngberg, who has been with him for 22 years, and Erin Henry, completing 17 years.
Under a new leadership structure with roles focused on elevated client services and creative engagement, Youngberg has been named chief creative strategist and will lead the agency's craft approach to creative engagement strategies, while Henry, former group account director, advances to the newly created role of vice-president of client engagement.
Both working in the Calgary office, they will also be involved in the support of the Toronto office that Lindsay opened in 2006.
Melody Macpherson, previously vice-president and managing director of the Toronto office, takes the helm as the new president of the agency.
The Calgary team of 25 will collaborate with the 15 staff in Toronto overseeing a major new relationship with Unilever Canada.
Following a competitive, multi-agency review process, Unilever Canada selected LPI Group as its new Shopper Marketing/isv (in-store vehicle) agency of record.
It will work on the development and execution of shopper engagement programming and ISV'S for more than 30 cross-category Unilever brands, including Dove, Degree, Axe and Dove Men+care.
“With shoppers exploring new ways to engage with and purchase brands, we are so pleased to have an agency partner that will deliver Canadian insights and a deep understanding of our market,” says Rhonda Mitchell, director of strategy and shopper marketing for Unilever Canada.
During the COVID crisis, LPI Group was also awarded a major new partnership in Calgary, working with some key projects for Big Rock Brewery.
Traditional Ale has remained one of its most popular brands since the English-style brown ale was one of the original three brews when the brewery was founded in 1985. More than 35 years later, the recipe remains the same but the agency has boosted the marketing of the distinct-flavoured beer with its Curiously Traditional campaign.
Founder Ed Mcnally had a passion to bring better beer to Canada.
“Innovation is our heritage, and is also our future,” says Wayne Arsenault, Big Rock chief executive. “Big Rock still believes in the importance of handcrafted products in a high-volume world, and we're proud of it.”
Its latest product, to be released this month, is White Peaks Hard Steeped Tea — low-calorie and non-carbonated, using real steeped tea leaves — and LPI Group is charged with its complete brand development, including brand strategy and story, packaging, social and digital strategy, and development.
They are two exciting challenges for the Calgary agency that grew to be a national contender, serving long-standing cross-canada accounts such as Coca-cola and Kraft Canada.
Adopting and growing during COVID has meant adding eight new bodies across all departments and currently recruiting for an additional five.
Notes: Future Skills Centre, an ■ organization dedicated to helping Canadians gain skills they need to thrive in a changing market, has announced its selection of Shock Proofing the Future of Work projects. Calgary-based Mindfuel has been selected as a partner and has been awarded $756,000 over a two-year period toward its “STEM skills and an innovation mindset for youth” project focused on Indigenous innovators. A registered charity since 1990, Mindfuel is committed to supporting students and teachers with STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning products. The new partnership will help reduce barriers to education for Indigenous youth in rural Alberta, B.C. and Yukon.