Toronto's latest agency player, Grip Limited was, as the old James song goes, born of frustration. In this case, it was a frustrated advertiser, convinced it was not getting the best value from its current agency or from the existing agency world in general, which did the birthing.

The agency boasts a starting line-up including: Bob Shanks, ex president of Toronto's Roche Macauley & Partners; Mike Robitaille, previously director of marketing at Labatt; ex Palmer Jarvis DDB Vancouver creative director Randy Stein; former BBDO Toronto senior VP/creative director Scott Dube; former Palmer Jarvis DDB Toronto co-creative directors Dave Chiavegato and Rich Pryce-Jones; David Crichton of The Crichton Kim-Kirkland Company; and Graham Lee, who had formerly served as creative director at San Francisco's Odiorne Wilde Narraway & Partners. Shanks and Robitaille will operate as partners, business at the new shop; creatives will assume the title partner, creative rather than working under traditional roles, like creative director. This fall, Labatt left its agency of eight years, Ammirati Puris, with Labatt president Fred Jaques citing a flawed business model in the agency world and a desire to create a new kind of agency to handle its business. While Ammirati had spearheaded successful work for the brewer, including the high profile Out of the Blue campaign, the agency also faced significant turmoil in the past year. Summer 2001 saw a number of its top staff depart to form a new Toronto agency, John St. After Labatt departed in November, the agency suffered a rash of additional client defections. Labatt VP marketing Charles Oliver says the move was motivated in large part by cost considerations.

"We continually set a higher bar for the quality of advertising," says Oliver. "We'd been happy with the work (Ammirati) had been producing; the problem is, we've seen the costs of getting to that level escalate." Labatt took a hard look at agency processes, says Oliver, to determine the underlying issues behind what the advertiser saw as undue escalation of costs without a commensurate rise in value. "We came to recognize that when you look at increases in costs, it's not really the people, it's the continuing pressure that large agencies have in terms of increasing the bottom line," says Oliver. "And those revenues aren't necessarily going back to the people who work on your business, they're going to fund increased profit targets and overheads. We had conversations with (Ammirati) about the cost of doing business and there was continuing pressure on us to increase our fees to them."

Grip will handle Labatt Blue, Blue Light, John Labatt Classic, Kokanee and Carlsberg brands. Notwithstanding the departure of the key team of Chiavegato and Pryce-Jones, Oliver says Palmer Jarvis DDB will retain the Budweiser and Bud Light business that agency has managed with great critical success.

Lee says the agency will be able to offer world class advertising in a more cost-efficient manner due to the streamlined structure of the shop. "We've brought together some of the best creative people and concentrated them into one place," says Lee. "These are the people who will work directly with the client, so it's not the case where you have a bunch of senior people who are simply taking meetings but not actually doing the work. Instead, these are people who have consistently done some of the most memorable and effective work and have moved up the ranks and become managers and are now all taking a step back to produce work and are working together as a collective team." Collaboration among staff and with client will be the shop's M.O. says Lee: "I think this is going to shatter one of the myths that creative people don't like dealing with clients; it's everyone's belief on this partnership that that's how you get to the best work."

Grip will begin work on Labatt business in mid-January and Oliver says there have been discussions with other advertisers interested in getting involved with the shop.

According to Oliver, Labatt will have no ownership stake in the new venture, which will be privately held by employees and will operate on a payment by performance basis. Grip's mandate is to provide strong creative while keeping administrative costs down and while maintaining a transparent operations and finance model. Toward that end, Peter Elwood, formerly of Lipton and Lever Brothers will chair a client advisory board at the agency, which is designed to promote openness and client involvement. Each agency client will have a seat on the board.