Frank Macera

Horse racing in Ontario provides 25,000 jobs. Due to declining track attendance over the last several years, the horse racing industry was under serious pressure. Instead of doing another 30 second TV ad telling people to go to the track, we brought the track to the people with a two-season, nine-part docuseries that made them fall in love with the sport.

To promote season 2 we partnered with Avling Brewery to create Unfiltered Ale – a custom beer made from the same barley champion race horses eat, available for purchase at race tracks and sports bars in Ontario. Each can was designed with a QR code to stream the series.

SERIES CREDITS

CCO: Graham Lang
ACD: Dylan Verwey
ACD: John Ricciardella
Design Lead: Sam Bullis
Design: Jennifer Yoon

ALE CREDITS

CCO: Graham Lang
GCD: Kyle Carpenter
GCD: Jose Rivas
Design Lead: Mike Butler

Canada has been printing money for over 150 years. In that time, an Indigenous woman has never been featured on a Canadian bank note. TAXI worked with the Native Women's Association of Canada to launch Change The Bill, a call to action that aims to promote reconciliation through art by commissioning Indigenous artists to reimagine the $20 bill with the Indigenous women who are their heroes. Placing an Indigenous woman on the bill would recognize the important but often overlooked contributions they have made to this country. Change is long overdue.

CCO: Graham Lang
CW: Dylan Thompson
AD: Carlos Veras
Design Lead: Sam Bullis
Design: Jennifer Yoon

Coca-Cola’s "Real Magic" platform celebrates the moments of connection that unite people, and the Balikbayan tradition perfectly embodies this magic. In its second year of connecting with Filipino Canadians, Coca-Cola sought to deepen its relationship with the community by tapping into their holiday traditions. The work focused on celebrating the Sari-Sari store, a hub where the community purchases gifts for their Balikbayan boxes and feels a strong connection to home, all while protecting the Balikbayan tradition amidst rising shipping costs.

CCO: Graham Lang
ECD: Antoine Bécotte
CD: Jeremy Lenz
CD: Sucheta Shankar
AD: Coralie Adler
CW: Sarah Auclair
CW: Philippe Moderie
ACD: Sasha Ortega
ACD: LB Cooper
Design Lead: Sam Bullis
Design: Jennifer Yoon

Toronto is the poverty capital of Canada with more than 116,000 families struggling to put a roof over their head. However, this problem gets ignored because on the surface, the city appears to be prosperous and thriving with its ever-growing skyline.

To bring attention to this issue, we created the #UNIGNORABLE Tower – a mobile AR experience that imagines the tower we would need to build for every Toronto family that can’t afford a place to live. We turned the city’s skyline into an AR target, allowing people to see the true scale of poverty from any location across Toronto. If it were real, this tower would be the world’s tallest building.

CW: Michael Mehrasa
AD: Will Cuthbert
ACD: Dan Cantelon, Marc Levesque
ECD: Kelsey Horne, Alexis Bronstorph

Here are a few pieces of OLG work I’ve led. These pieces are a lot of fun thanks to the clients, creatives, account group, strategists, producers, and amazing production partners.

Most car commercials in Canada have a legal super that says: European model shown. For Audi Canada, instead of using global assets and European models, we created something unique to Canada. BC Model Shown featured two unique artists in BC and told their stories through the parallels that exist between their work and the design of Audi’s all electric e-tron models. The campaign included long form video of each artist, along with :15s, :06s, and beautiful stills that captured the natural beauty of BC.

ACD: LB Cooper
ACD: Sasha Ortega

Canadian Tire is Canada’s go-to store for everyday products. Unfortunately, Canadians don’t consider products like washer fluid, frying pans, and paint to be as cool as smart watches, phones, and drones. Most people don’t see the innovation hiding in the practical products that make everyday life work better. That’s why we created We Do New - a platform designed to look, feel, and sound new, and to let Canadians know that Canadian Tire does innovation as well as anyone.

ACD: Lorne Heller
ACD: Justin Luu
CW: Michael Mehrasa
AD: Will Cuthbert

KOHO is a fintech company that’s not here to sell people a financial dream. They’re here to help people with their financial reality. This campaign talked about money the way real people talked, and when people saw themselves in the work they understood that KOHO really is made for their money.

ACD: LB Cooper
ACD: Sasha Ortega

The Walking Dead, one of AMC's most popular TV shows, is set in a world overrun by zombies. To get people excited about its return on February 10th we created the Rotting Finger Countdown. Every day leading up to February 10th, one finger was hacked off the hands, counting down the days to the return of the show. We also asked people to Tweet pictures of themselves in front of the hands with #TWDfeb10 for a chance to win one of the fingers.

For years, Canadian Tire ran highly successful Christmas campaigns that featured their spokesperson Gary and highlighted specific gifts you could get at the store. In 2018 research showed us that Canadians wanted less stuff and more stories, and that’s exactly what we gave them. We created an integrated campaign about a Canadian Christmas town called Mount Maple, which has a Canadian Tire at its centre, and told magical stories about the people who live there. The first year of the campaign drove some of the best results in Canadian Tire’s history, and the hero video was one of the most watched ads on YouTube for Q4 of 2018. This is a small sample of the work we did on Christmas campaigns.

CW: Pete MacInnis
AD: Chris Walker

CIL Premium is a paint + primer in one for just $29. Great value for that price. So our idea was: Beauty on a Small Budget.

This is a selection of some of the Canadian Tire work I’ve led. Lots of different pieces brought to life here thanks to the clients, creatives, account group, strategists, producers, and amazing production partners.

To launch the Mercedes-Benz 2012 C-Class Coupe, one was parked in front of a motion blurred wall, sidewalk, and billboard that read: “Looks fast. Even in park. The 450 HP 2012 C-Class Coupe.” To complete the motion-blur illusion, real 3D models of a motion blurred fire hydrant, parking sign, and mailbox were created to be part of the street scene.

The TESTED For Life In Canada platform started a few years before I started on the business, and its success meant I had some big shoes to fill. TESTED is a platform designed to convince Canadians of the quality of Canadian Tire’s products - everything from car batteries, to tools, to spray paint. I’m proud to say that under my leadership the success of the program continued and even won an Effie for sustained success. This is just a small sample of the work we did on the TESTED platform.

CW: Michael Mehrasa
AD: Will Cuthbert

Adidas wasn’t a consideration for runners in Canada, so we relaunched it with a simple truth: The only thing runners want to do is #runmore. To do that we had to show runners that we understood them – that running isn’t just about blisters on your nipples and broken toenails. We needed to go beyond physical running clichés and connect emotionally with what running feels like.

We created runmore.ca, a hub to tap into the social aspect of modern running. It features online video, social posts, non-traditional running routes in different cities across Canada integrated with Google Maps, and Spotify playlists that runners could sync to their routes.

And as the ultimate expression of the #runmore campaign we held Adidas Canada’s first race on the day the clocks turned back - the only 25-hour day - and used that extra hour to run.