Arcade Studios Is Building a New Kind of Agency Blueprint

The Calgary agency built a foresight practice, a diversity program, and a creative culture that's still genuinely excited about marketing. Here's what others can learn from how they did it.

There's a certain type of agency that treats digital culture like a problem to be managed. Arcade Studios is not that agency. The Calgary and Vancouver-based shop, led by partners Mitzi and Mike Payne, describes itself, officially, as a social-first creative agency. Unofficially? “A scrappy group of very online, very creative people who have figured out how to make digital marketing actually work." It's a distinction that matters to them, and it shows in how they operate.

We sat down with the Arcade Studios team to find out how they built it.

Excellent at the Right Things

At the heart of everything Arcade does is a belief that might sound simple but is actually pretty rare in this industry: that marketing is romantic. “It's the connection between creative work and an audience that gets us excited to come to work. And that posture makes it impossible not to be optimistic about what's possible in this industry."

That optimism is paired with a refreshing amount of self-awareness. Arcade isn't trying to be everything to everyone. “We're very good at specific things, and we lean all the way into those. We'd rather be excellent at what we do and hand off what we're not the best at to the right partners, than overpromise and underdeliver. Not a lot of agencies will say that out loud. We're saying it."

In an era of algorithm anxiety, AI upheaval, and content burnout, their combination of genuine excitement about the work, and clarity about what the work actually is has become their competitive edge.

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The Signal-Spotting Machine

Scan Club started as an internal practice and grew into something much bigger. Led by Creative Director and Futurist Alyssa Yuhas, the whole Arcade team is expected to be actively scanning digital culture, flagging signals in a dedicated Slack channel, then gathering monthly to ask the harder questions: What does this actually mean? What kind of future is this pointing to?

“It's part research, part community-building, part culture — and it keeps the whole team sharp in a way that a traditional agency briefing never could."

The output is an annual trends report, and the 2026 edition landed with real force. Rather than chasing trends, Arcade tracks behavioral change over time, looking for the connective tissue between signals. “Signals don't exist in isolation. They're part of a bigger behavioral system, all connected, and that connection is really the whole thing." Part art, part science.

The response confirmed something they'd suspected. “When you're in this industry, you can feel like you're constantly chasing the next thing, the next algorithm, the next format, the next TikTok trend; and it's exhausting. Scan Club is our answer to that." Over 60,000 marketers from around the world engaged with the 2026 report, a signal in itself that people are hungry for a smarter way to navigate the noise.

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Who Gets a Seat at the Table

Arcade isn't just thinking about the future of marketing. They're trying to shape who gets to participate in it.

Arcademy, their internship and mentorship program, was built around a straightforward observation: breaking into marketing is hard, and it's even harder if you're a person of colour. The program gives emerging marketers hands-on, full-loop experience, from campaign launch to client presentation, because that's the part schools consistently fail to deliver.

“Nothing prepares you for what it actually feels like to launch a campaign, solve problems in real time, and then sit across from a client and present the results, good or bad. That full-loop experience teaches you things you just can't get from a textbook."

As for the students coming through? “They're multi-talented, they're built different, and they are absolutely going to change this industry. We're just lucky to play a small part in their story by giving them room to take the first step."

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Always in Beta

Ask Arcade what agencies need to rethink heading into 2026, and the answer isn't a technology platform or a new content format. It's a posture. “Our whole operating approach is to always be in beta. Never assume you've figured it out, stay curious, keep iterating." Not just reacting to change, but positioning to anticipate it.

It's the same philosophy that runs through Scan Club, through Arcademy, through their client work with brands like Pizza 73, GoDaddy, Kananaskis Nordic Spa, and Matty Matheson. The goal, ultimately, is work they can look back on with pride, not just for the outputs, but for how they got there. Low toxicity. No performance. All for the love of the game.

In an industry that rewards cynicism and punishes idealism, Arcade Studios is making the other bet. So far, it's paying off.

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Arcade Studios is based in Calgary and Vancouver. Learn more at arcadestudios.com, and subscribe to Scan Club at scanclub.substack.com.