Campaigns no longer move in straight lines. Audiences bounce between platforms, experiencing content across a growing mix of media, social channels, PR and experiential touchpoints. Creating work that turns heads remains important, but making sure it keeps turning heads wherever people encounter it is the new challenge.
Fuse’s holiday 2025 campaign for Soles4Souls Canada raised awareness for homelessness and earned more than 528 million impressions.
This concept has shaped Fuse Create’s recent evolution. In the past several years, the independent Toronto-based agency with 70 staff members has broadened its media capabilities, launched a dedicated PR practice, strengthened its U.S. footprint, expanded strategic partnerships and built a more integrated operating model. The goal wasn’t necessarily growth, but finding more ways for its clients to succeed.
Fuse has earned billions of engagements across every platform and in every major news outlet, turning heads – and turning brands into cultural icons.
This integrated approach is gaining recognition across disciplines, landing Fuse on Strategy’s Agency of the Year shortlists in both media and PR last year.
“We’re always on the lookout for services we need to invest more in, or offerings we can enhance,” says CEO Stephen Brown. “But that doesn’t mean trying to do everything. We want to offer more robust solutions for clients while staying focused on our strengths.”
As audiences become more fragmented, stronger planning and distribution capabilities create opportunities for campaigns to travel further. So Fuse diversified its media services, because bringing media expertise into conversations earlier allows strategy and creative to shape one another, rather than functioning separately.
In 2025, Fuse’s media division was shortlisted for Strategy’s Media AOY, thanks in part to its 48-hour takeover media strategy and buy for Maple Leaf Foods’ “Look for the Leaf” campaign.
As the agency expanded its capabilities, it also broadened the markets where it could apply them. Britebound, a U.S.-based non-profit that helps students navigate education and career pathways, became an AOR client in early 2025. This relationship – including work on Britebound’s rebrand and relaunch – helped establish a foothold for Fuse’s growing U.S. presence as it continues building partnerships south of the border.
The U.S. relaunch and rebrand of 70-year-old educational non-profit Britebound achieved 13% awareness in just six weeks. Fuse Create’s remit has grown 3x since earning AOR status in January 2025.
“The U.S. offers an opportunity for many more clients, regions and categories,” says partner, SVP and ECD Steve Miller. “It also gives us the ability to work across a wide range of scales, from smaller organizations to large national brands.”
In a move designed to strengthen its influencer marketing capabilities, the agency recently formed a strategic alliance with a U.S.-based influencer agency. “There is a constant demand around the intersection between PR, social and influencer work,” Brown says. “We specifically went looking for a partner in the U.S. because we wanted to be part of the process rather than handing work off.”
Meanwhile, the decision to build out a dedicated PR practice reflected the core belief that drives many of Fuse’s recent moves: Strong ideas become stronger when more perspectives shape them. As audiences continue to discover brands through creators, communities and conversation, earned thinking moves ever closer to the centre of campaign development.
“A lot of brands and CMOs are looking for earned-first creative,” says Jenn Duggan, SVP and managing director, PR. “In this distracted economy, we want to earn the attention of consumers and make sure it’s actually something they want to be part of.”
When Miami Ad School Toronto unexpectedly closed its doors last summer, Fuse opened its own, giving displaced students a sense of community, opportunity and support that continues today.
None of Fuse’s expansions was intended to exist independently. The real value comes from what happens when they all work together to create sharper ideas and deeper partnerships. “Collaborating with a production expert, a PR expert and a media expert allows us to do every job better,” says partner, SVP and head of strategy Jon Crowley.
To entrench Ricola’s position as a lozenge that soothes everyday voices (say from cheering on your favourite World Cup team), Fuse changed one letter in the logo to own the biggest sporting event to hit North America in 32 years.
This may be felt internally, but it’s really the clients who win, Miller adds. “It allows us to add value beyond the remit. We’ve got experts in many different areas, and that creates stronger partnerships and more valuable relationships for clients.”
The result is often a relationship that grows well beyond the original brief. In the case of Soles4Souls – a non-profit providing shoes and clothing to communities facing economic hardship – a single assignment became a longer-term partnership. As trust grew, so did the scope of the work, with Fuse bringing additional capabilities to bear as client needs changed. This relationship eventually extended beyond campaign work as members of the Fuse team travelled to Honduras earlier this year to help distribute shoes to children in underserved communities.
For Fuse, the mission is to create more pathways for ideas and relationships to move forward – because if campaigns no longer travel in straight lines, neither can the thinking behind them. Work that keeps turning heads isn’t simply the result of one strong idea; it’s what happens when more people, perspectives and possibilities shape it from the beginning.
Culture is the lifeblood of an agency, and part of Fuse’s culture is giving back. With this in mind, the agency took 12 FUCRs to Honduras with Soles4Souls, to give struggling communities dignity and hope.
CONTACT:
Steve Miller
EDC, partner & SVP
steve@fusecreate.com
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