The hot Canadian shop Downtown Partners has shuttered its doors. According to Media In Canada, the shop announced it will shut its doors on February 15th. Downtown is part of Omnicom Canada and was created to provide Labatt with a more cutting edge creative.
In December, we reported that Labatt had ditched Downtown, but we certainly didn’t think it would fold, despite it the brewery being 40% of the shop’s revenue. Honestly… We thought Omnicom would prop it up until the shop found its feet and got into the swing of pitching for business. That’s a mothership for you. Nurturing, until it’s not.
The agency has won Clios, Bessies and all the rest of the accolades during its tenure. Downtown also had the Red Cross, Pepsi QTG and Anheuser-Busch as clients. We’re sure that all of these brands will find a home within the Omnicom fold.
In a news release, Dan Pawych, interim managing director and CD at Downtown Partners, and one of its founding members, said: “The agency is a victim of consequence. We’ve gone down fighting. We tried everything we could to restructure the agency and fortify its existing business. The remaining accounts didn’t provide a strong enough revenue base to continue long-term operations. Minus the account and creative talent, it became impossible to secure the kind of future commitments from clients or new business opportunities that would allow us to continue to be a force.”