The Work That Was revisits the stories that made the strategy newsroom laugh, think twice or do a double take this week, rounding up campaigns, strategies and industry moments that shaped the marketing landscape.

Jimmy The Greek lays siege to the multiplex

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has already silenced pre-release culture-warrior criticisms of “woke casting” and “historical inaccuracy,” winning near unanimous audience and critical approval upon release. It’s easily the clubhouse leader take home all the Oscars and collect all the money, making $264.1 million USD worldwide on opening weekend alone.

Jimmy The Greek saw it coming miles off.

Image courtesy of Jimmy The Greek

The Canadian QSR and agency Sid Lee went stealth mode for the film’s opening weekend, launching packaging designed to disguise their pitas as clutch purses, glasses cases and umbrella covers. The innovation not only tied the restaurant to one of this summer’s most talked about cultural moments, it did so both metaphorically and unofficially, nodding to a plot point in the movie – the Trojan’s covert siege of Troy – and attacking the film’s audience without relying on a bit of the film’s IP or iconography.

Will you enter the theatre reeking of tzatziki, onions, and tomatoes, plus your choice of a signature protein? Yes. But will you feel like the Greek King of Ithaca knowing you’ve dodged the mile-high margins theatres rake in from their generic multiplex fast food? Also yes.

National Bank updates its case for equal pay

National Bank spent the first half of the summer asking Canadians to bring World Cup energy to tennis. Now it’s posing a more uncomfortable question: If the work is equal, why isn’t the prize money?

The financial institution’s latest campaign with LG2 centres on Tennis Canada’s pledge to achieve equal purses at the National Bank Open by 2027. Rather than relying on triumphant slow-motion highlights, the film lingers on the less glamorous aspects of elite sport: Exhaustion, disappointment, recovery and even motherhood.

National Bank and LG2’s work trusts viewers to connect the dots on the idea, conveying the idea that if victory demands the same sacrifices, equal pay shouldn’t be an aspiration, it’s just common sense.

BHLA bets on content-first future

Agency restructurings don’t always make for compelling reading. This one does.

This week, Broken Heart Love Affair folded Lifelong Crush into the agency as a dedicated production studio. BHLA co-founder and chief business officer Beverley Hammond told strategy that the move was made to meet client demand for a single creative partner to take ideas all the way from brand platform to content, commerce and experience.

The timing feels apt. One of BHLA’s latest projects, Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s Milk Masters on the Move looks less like a traditional campaign than a YouTube cooking show that just happens to celebrate Ontario dairy. Five-minute episodes, chef personalities and outdoor adventures aren’t replacing advertising, but they are blurring the line between campaign and content. (Note: Lifelong Crush was the agency collaborator on the Milk Masters’ previous two iterations.)

It’s another sign that agencies aren’t just competing to make the next great ad. Many are becoming production companies in their own right.

– Additional images coutesy of National Bank and Dairy Farmers of Ontario