McMillan has always strived to create the very best work environment for its employees, so we were thrilled to hear that Queen’s University School of Business and Profit Magazine have recognized us as one of Canada’s 50 Best Small and Medium Employers for 2012.

To promote this year’s version of the largest animation festival in North America, McMillan decided to let the animations themselves take hold of the city. This could get crazy.

How to convince teenaged girls that looking like a Jersey Girl really isn’t cool? Our “Indoor Tanning Isn’t Pretty” video burns that thought into the heads of anyone who sees it.

Hitachi Data Systems needed to make their presence known in a big way in a new market space. It was all about arming their global sales force, setting up partners with everything they needed, and then targeting the markets around the world with engaging materials that told a broad, integrated story.

To celebrate our 15^th anniversary, and to promote creative excellence in our hometown, we collaborated with the Canada Dance Festival to produce a performance art piece using our historic ByWard Market building as a stage.

Opera Lyra Ottawa wanted to drum up some excitement for its upcoming
season—and wanted to do it by standing out from the crowded field of local arts events. The striking poster series created by McMillan breathes new life into a classic art form.

McMillan has worked closely with Westfest for the past five years, developing campaigns and creating its unique look. When we were given the chance to show a promotional video throughout the weekend, we thought we’d show festival-goers what we’re made of.

Well, what one of us is made of, at least…

McGraw-Hill Annual Report

The interactive annual report we developed for McGraw-Hill incorporated all of the content from the print version of the report, along with new and existing video, animation, live social media, and full integration with McGraw-Hill's various websites.

We could tell you more, but why not interact with the actual annual report instead?

D&B360

D&B spent most of 2010 preparing to debut their new product, D&B360, at Dreamforce—the cloud computing event of the year.

The D&B360 video was part of this launch campaign, which also included messaging, branding, a website, and sales collateral—plus an entirely custom presence at Dreamforce.

So stop looking at this, and start seeing the rest of the campaign at dnb360.com.

Victorian Order of Nurses

The Victorian Order of Nurses (VON) and VHA Home Healthcare (VHA) are responsible for the safety and care of their visiting home care employees. But because they're always on the road and are hard to reach, they asked M^cMillan to help increase safety awareness and address safety concerns.

Canada Post

When M^cMillan was given the opportunity to promote Canada Post's Mental Health Foundation "Cause of Choice" in 2010, we asked ourselves… what most moves us to give? What most motivates us to act? Statistics? Fear? Guilt? Or Hope? You got it. We chose hope. Hope you liked it.

MD Financial

When MDFinancial asked M^cMillan if there might be a way to ensure that its customers remained front and centre during a conference, we found an intriguing media for the message: Post-it notes filled with customer statistics were used to create large posters of customers' faces.

Happy Holidays from McMillan!

To all our clients, suppliers, and friends, best of luck to you and your families in the coming year! See you in 2011...

CA WORLD

Our work for CA World'10, a gathering of thousands of CA Technologies customers, covered the gamut from creating physical spaces and experiences to supporting CA's top keynote speakers with dynamic video content. Download the pdf to see more samples of our work.

CIRA

Does social media work? Absolutely. The Show Us Your .ca campaign allowed entrants to highlight why they love their .ca address. We couldn't say it any better. Download the pdf of screen captures of the campaign.

INTUIT

When you figure traditional marketing techniques won't work, make something up. That was the impetus behind inventing Account Appreciation Week, a successful way for clients to show their accountants a little love and for Intuit Canada to collect valuable emails for accountants who could benefit from its products. Download the pdf to see samples from the campaign.

ONTARIO MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (OMA)

Our first campaign with the Ontario Medical Association—Your life is our life’s work—presented the personal reasons doctors become doctors. With a media buy heavily concentrated around Ontario government buildings, the campaign sent a clear message to politicians that doctors need to be at the centre of discussions about health care reform. Politicians from the premier down saw it, commented on it, loved it.

CANADA POST

M^cMillan creates a lot of campaigns for Canada Post, one of Canada’s largest corporations. Some interactive. Some direct mail and email. We’ve even designed stamps. This assignment was particularly poignant (and patriotic) because the site rebuild features the National Freestyle Ski Team in a year when Vancouver is hosting the winter Olympic Games. Go Canada!

MEN OF M^cMILLAN

You’ve seen the trailer. Now it’s time to dig deep and give for a good cause. Order your copy of the “Men of M^cMillan” and join us on a 15-month journey into the heart of machismo. 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this calendar will go toward supporting prostate cancer research and prevention.

DOMICILE

We've partnered with Domicile Developments, one of Canada's more progressive urban builders, for years and years. Together, we've built a powerful brand with smart campaigns that appeal to niche markets such as gay couples, empty-nesters, and young urban professionals...or should we say urbane professionals.

SODIUM

Sodium is a good thing… in moderation, but we consume more than twice the recommended amount of sodium each day. That's high blood pressure and heart disease waiting to happen. McMillan exercised its strength in cause marketing to create a campaign around sodium reduction that has people giving their heads a shake — and making healthier choices.

SANTY CLAWS

What started as an exercise to create a holiday gift for clients has become a wonderful way to raise money for charity. It's a children's book called Santy Claws and the TOE-nenbaum, a quirky, slightly spooky story about a brave boy named Timmy who saves his sister from Santa’s evil twin. It’s not only a great gift, but 100% of profits will be donated to Make-A-Wish Canada, a national children's charity that helps make wishes come true for children with life-threatening medical conditions. Visit the web site. Order the book. And smile.

WESTFEST

As you read this, WESTFEST 2009 – Ottawa's premier summer festival of music, visual, literary, performance art, dance, spoken word, and theatre – is but a warm memory. Over 100,000 happy visitors are savouring their favourite moments. Luckily, you can get a taste of it over and over again just by clicking Play—over and over again.

Grass Valley

Grass Valley wanted presentation tools its team could use to amaze and enlighten potential customers about its content delivery system, MEDIAEDGE. So before getting into the details, we created an intro that will help prospects see the light.

D&B S&MS

How many companies do a great job of talking to the customer but neglect to talk to their own employees? This internal campaign launch for new Sales & Marketing Solutions from D&B got everyone on board, from the sales teams to customer support. After all, the core of every great brand is a talented and informed team of employees.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

You've just seen snippets from a campaign to grow CMHC's mortgage loan insurance market share. And that we did. After researching the market, we developed a two-stream campaign: one stream targeted the mortgage professionals themselves and a second stream targeted homebuyers and homeowners. Push. Pull. And multi-pronged: print and online advertising, social media tags, landing pages, interactive videos, portable web widgets, emails, RSS. You name it, we did it. And, best of all, it's working.

CA

Who would have thought that Information Governance could be so important? Exactly! CA (formerly Computer Associates) asked us to get the message out to large enterprises that managing things like governance, risk, and compliance better can help them thrive and keep them from fumbling for answers when regulators come a-calling. You just met Allan Peterson, around whom we built an integrated campaign to deliver the CA value proposition.

Canadian Wildlife Federation

You've just seen a taste of the www.wildaboutgardening.org website. Wild About Gardening is an award-winning online resource created by McMillan for Canadians who love gardening. Check out the site, not just to see the design, but also to get some good-earth tips on how to garden in an environmentally sustainable way.

Ottawa's Mental Health Crisis Line awareness campaign

The Crisis Line offers crisis intervention and suicide prevention, 24 hours a day, in the Ottawa region. However, the vast majority of potential callers don’t know that the line exists. Until now. This television commercial was part of a multi-media campaign designed to help people recall the Crisis Line when they or somebody they care about needs it most.

Evening in the Maritimes: experience the event lobsters love to hate

Each year, an amazing charity, Citizen Advocacy, undertakes a fund-raising event called Evening in the Maritimes. Each year, McMillan minds go to work on persuading the citizens of Ottawa to come for the party, don a plastic bib, and consume their fill of clawed crustaceans for a great cause. These multi-media outreach campaigns have helped the charity meet its funding goals and provided our team with the opportunity to do award-winning creative.

YOU i Labs: nothing like building a brand from the ground up

So, you’ve developed this great way to give low-priced phones the look, feel, and functionality that would make any Apple designer proud. Low-price device. Amazing user experience. Sounds intriguing. So you call McMillan, who works flat out to develop a simple, compelling brand identity and a simple compelling website that gets some of the top mobile device companies knocking on your door. And this is just the beginning...

McMillan's contribution to greater AIDS awareness
For several years, McMillan has contributed time and talent to promoting World AIDS Day for the Canadian AIDS Society. This year, we wanted to go way beyond print to something that is, quite frankly, viral. Check out RUpositive.ca. Take the quiz, and share this concept with others. Knowledge is power.

McMillan creates a Top 100 annual report
In 2007, the FPAC Annual Report earned accolades from Communication Arts and Applied Arts Magazine. That's a tough act to follow. Nevertheless, the 2008 FPAC annual has met the challenge, winning inclusion in Black Book AR 100, which honours the top 100 annuals as chosen by a panel of award-winning designers. Thanks, FPAC, for leaning on us again this year to project a strong, progressive brand.

Defining a fashionable destination: St. Laurent Centre
This account is way too much fun. We've tapped our deep illustration talents to define a differentiated brand that is whimsical and fashionable for the largest regional shopping centre in eastern Ontario. Just thought we'd share.

McMillan on McMillan

Gordon McMillan, Chief Creative Officer at McMillan, talks candidly about the fears of starting a creative agency and about what gets him excited about the creative process.