Canada’s Zulu Alpha Kilo is on a mission to fight ‘sameness’ with unconventional ads

“We Fight Sameness”—unconventionally styled as “We FiGHT SaMeNess”—are the first three words etched across the home page of Zulu Alpha Kilo's website. But the award-winning Canadian agency, which often goes by Z.A.K. for short, does not approach that idea as a mere slogan; it tries to embrace the mantra in all of its assignments, from working with online education platform D2L and industrial designers to develop the “unstandardized” student desk to spearheading Booking.com’s 2023 Super Bowl spot featuring Melissa McCarthy. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here It’s those kinds of clever efforts that, in part, helped the agency increase its revenue by more than 40% in 2023. And when a brief calls for more of a so-called “traditional” campaign—the kind with TV commercials, print ads, the works—Zulu Alpha Kilo strives to craft work that draws attention, even when there’s nothing particularly notable to seize on. Ad Age A-List and Creativity Gala Buy your ticket to the in-person event Click here The indie agency’s team had its work cut out for them last year with Pizza Pizza, Canada’s largest pizza chain, which exists in a hyper-competitive market full of multinational giants and mom-and-pop slice joints alike. So, amid soaring interest rates in Canada, Z.A.K. sought to make Pizza Pizza stand out by positioning the brand as an economic bastion that vowed not to raise prices for 12 months. The results were immediate: within weeks, the company sold 1.1 million of what Z.A.K. dubbed “Fixed Rate Pizzas,” driving an average of 67% more volume than a usual promotion would produce, and garnering a profit of $19 million, the agency said. That came without significant media spend, special discounts or even a new menu item to promote. The agency doesn’t just strive to combat sameness in its work, but it makes efforts to do so in its staffing. It was founded by Zak Mroueh, whose first name, spelled out in the NATO phonetic alphabet, led to the agency’s memorable moniker. More than one-third of “Zuligans”—the shop’s internal term for employees—identify as people of color, and it’s certified as a minority-owned business by the Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council. The shop, moreover, does not take itself too seriously: It regularly creates parody videos of agency angst and last year satirized back-to-work mandates with a tongue-in-cheek video espousing seven-day work weeks. See all of Ad Age’s 2024 Agency A-List winners here

Canada’s Zulu Alpha Kilo is on a mission to fight ‘sameness’ with unconventional ads

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