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Proof Strategies Launches New Group as the Trusted Voice to Unify Marketing and Communications

January 25, 2022

The unification of earned, creative, strategy, digital and client services teams helps reduce wasted spend 

January 25, 2022 – Toronto, ON – Today, Proof Strategies, Canada’s leading independent communications agency, launched its Unified Marketing and Communications (UMC) (link) group. The UMC team brings together experts across strategy, creative, digital, paid and was conceived to answer the expanding mandates of its 80+ current clients and address the growing demand from marketers for a more effective spend. 

“We created the UMC group to answer the problem we kept hearing from clients and from our industry – that marketing dollars aren’t being well spent,” says Andrew Kinnear, Senior Vice President, UMC at Proof Strategies. “We call this marketing and communications waste, with the biggest contributors being internal silos, oversized IATs and ineffective spend caused by applying traditional solutions to modern communications challenges.” 

Proof Strategies applies an “audience-first” approach with an emphasis on earning attention and, more importantly – trust – creating content people want to see and share instead of ads they chose to ignore. Applying that expertise to attention-grabbing content and creative was a natural extension of the agency’s 27-year history of creating culturally relevant stories through earned media. 

“PR and communications ability to earn audience’s attention, move at the speed of culture and build brand trust is a strategic advantage to marketers. While today’s audiences are actively turning advertising off, they are consuming more content than ever. Branded content can recapture society’s attention,” adds Kinnear.  

Proof Strategies brings an unbiased approach to solving clients’ business problems, by building bespoke teams to complement our clients’ partners and internal capabilities. This strategy has enabled the agency to support full-spectrum mandates for the Canadian Red Cross, Next Generation Manufacturing (NGen) and more.  

“It’s more important than ever that brands build, maintain and protect trust, while authentically connecting with audiences in an always-on world,” says Bruce MacLellan, President and CEO of Proof Strategies. “As experts in trust and sponsor of the annual CanTrust Index™, we know high trust organizations are materially more competitive and enjoy lower costs of doing business. We help our clients earn their audience’s attention and in-turn, grow, innovate and create trust-based value.” 

“Our legacy of PR and communications success helps us to better understand how to build and maintain trust between a brand and its audience,” says Kelly Olive, Vice President, UMC at Proof Strategies. “This expertise allows us to deliver stronger and more meaningful results directly connected to solving client business challenges.” 

The group’s leadership will include Andrew Kinnear, Senior Vice President, and Kelly Olive, who was promoted to Vice President in April 2021 and joined with Kinnear in summer 2021 to develop the UMC group.   

In addition to Lindy Frank DeFazio, who joined Proof Strategies as Senior Director, Strategy this past fall, recent additions to the team include: 

About Proof Strategies 

For leaders responsible for managing, protecting and building organizations and brands, Proof Strategies is a public relations, government relations and communications partner that “asks better questions” to create insight, grow trust and support clients. Founded in 1994, the independent agency has earned more than 300 awards for client work and industry leadership, including Best Workplace in Canada in 2010 by Great Place to Work™, Agency Team of the Year in 2020 by the Canadian Public Relations Society and Caring Company Certification in 2022 by Imagine Canada. Proof has been carbon neutral since 2008. Follow Proof at getproof.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @get_proof. 

Contact  

Masha Mikey

mmikey@getproof.com 

416-825-1595