m5 The Agency has been helping brands stand out for over 40 years. What started with a single entrepreneur on the Rock has grown into a team of over 170 providing marketing and communications services across the country. Now one of the largest independent agencies in Canada, m5 continues to evolve with technology to stay ahead of the curve.

The brief

M5 was founded in 1981 by Gary Wadden in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wadden came from a family of entrepreneurs who owned long-time family business, F.J. Wadden and Sons. Rather than work for his family’s retail and food service distribution company, Gary followed his passion for marketing and advertising to create his own agency.

The name m5 was a spin on a classic marketing concept. Many students learn about the four Ps of marketing—product, price, place and promotion. However, Wadden felt there should be a fifth P for ‘people’ to emphasize the importance of understanding customer wants and needs for effective communication. That belief became the foundation of his agency, which he originally called m5 Advertising.

The growth stage

Wadden was soon joined by his business partner Derek Langdon, and together they grew m5 from a small startup. Their first expansion outside of Newfoundland was in the 1990s when they opened an office in Moncton, N.B., to manage a new account with General Motors. They soon expanded with offices in Halifax, N.S., and later in Charlottetown, P.E.I., ensuring representation across all four Atlantic provinces.

Wadden and Langdon maintained ownership of m5 until 2018, when they sold the business to a group of four long-time employees: Heather Dalton, Rick Rouah, Susan Clarke and Chris MacInnes. Partner Heather Dalton says m5 has evolved its service offerings and remained innovative over time. When she joined the business about 27 years ago, she remembers still doing things by hand, rolling up newspaper ads to be delivered by courier. As computers digitalized many processes and digital media grew in popularity, their agency built an in-house team with the skills needed to adapt to the changing landscape. Then came social media, influencers, a major demand for video content and AI. Meanwhile, m5 continued to invest in innovation, recently launching a bespoke AI hub to increase internal efficiencies, collaboration and data protection.

Present day

Today, m5 has five offices within Atlantic Canada, as well as remote employees across the country. While the agency has always done work for clients beyond the East Coast, signing Subway Canada as a client in 2020 required the agency to build a digital team further west. In addition to its core business, now known as m5 The Agency, m5 is part of a group of companies that include Wavelight Productions, MQO Research, ATN Strategies and Swagger Branding.

Reflecting on how the agency has changed over time, Dalton commented: “The way we execute programs has changed significantly, but the core of what we do hasn’t. Advertising only works when it delivers on objectives, and we’ve been grounded in research and great strategy that produces results since the ‘80s.”

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