The 2025 Grand Effie Winner Raising the Bar for Marketing Effectiveness

National Bank of Canada’s “The Investment Issue” Sets a New Standard for Purpose-Driven Results

This year’sGrand Effie winner didn’t just execute a smart campaign, it helped shift the national conversation around financial empowerment.

National Bank of Canada, in partnership with LG2 and Omnicom Media Group (Montréal), took home the highest honour at theEffie Awards Canada 2025 for “The Investment Issue,” a campaign designed to tackle the gender investing gap in a fresh, relevant, and culturally grounded way.

At a time when financial confidence is deeply tied to equity and opportunity, The Investment Issue stood out for both its insight and its impact, reshaping perceptions, driving tangible behaviour change, and delivering measurable business results.

What the Effie Awards Represent

For more than 50 years globally, and for decades in Canada, theEffie Awards have been the benchmark for marketing effectiveness, recognizing work that doesn’t just look good creatively, but proves it moved the needle.

Unlike awards focused primarily on craft or concept, Effies reward campaigns that demonstrate real-world impact, strong strategy, clear insight, smart execution, and measurable results for both brand and business. That’s what makes the Grand Effie so significant. It honors the single most effective case in the country.

Credit: National Bank of Canada

Flipping the Financial Narrative for Canadian Women

Women have historically been underserved, and often overlooked, by traditional financial messaging. National Bank’s approach acknowledged that gap and asked a simple but powerful question. What if financial empowerment showed up where women already feel represented?

The campaign became a first-of-its-kind editorial takeover, uniting nine of Canada’s leading women’s magazines to bring investing into spaces where it rarely appears. By weaving financial literacy and investment content into fashion, lifestyle, wellness, and culture media, the campaign reframed money as something women can engage with on their own terms.

The impact was striking:

• Reached nearly 80% of Canadian women
• Generated over 9 million interactions
• Drove a 31% increase in investment account openings
• Boosted the bank’s perceived commitment to gender equality by 130%

Perhaps most significantly, the initiative sparked a lasting commitment from the partner publications to continue championing women’s financial empowerment, extending the campaign’s influence far beyond its initial run.

Why It Won the Grand Effie

The Grand Effie is reserved for work that rises above in strategy, creativity, and proven effectiveness. The Investment Issue excelled on all three fronts:

1. A clear, culturally relevant insight

The campaign didn’t lecture. It met women where they already were and addressed a barrier that’s been hiding in plain sight.

2. A bold cross-industry collaboration

Bringing together nine major magazines is no small feat. The unified front created national visibility and authority.

3. Proven business impact

From account openings to perception shifts, the results were both strong and directly tied to the campaign’s strategy.

A Strong Year for Canadian Effectiveness

Other Gold winners included:

• Cashmere UltraLuxe and Lifelong Crush for “Becoming The Authority on Bathroom Luxury”
• TELUS and Rethink for “High Stakes” in Local Market Success

The ICA also recognized:

• McDonald’s Canada and National Bank of Canada as Marketers of the Year
• Rethink as Effie Canada Agency of the Year

With the awards announced alongside the country’s marketing community at The Gathering this year, the 2025 competition highlighted an industry increasingly focused on long-term brand building, meaningful creativity, and measurable results.

Celebrating Marketing That Moves Canada Forward

The Investment Issue is a strong reminder that when brands address real barriers with cultural fluency and intentional partnership, marketing can create both social impact and business growth.

And more broadly, Effie season is a chance to celebrate the strength of Canada’s marketing industry, the strategists, creatives, media teams, and brand leaders producing work that competes on a global stage while staying deeply connected to Canadian audiences.

These wins aren’t just trophies. They’re proof points for what Canadian marketing can do when insight, creativity, and effectiveness come together, and why it’s worth recognizing, sharing, and championing that work across the country.

About the Institute of Canadian Agencies (ICA):
Positively shaping the business environment for agencies to THRIVE. Working to Amplify, Protect and Transform our members, their people, and our industry.

Founded in 1905, the ICA is the not-for-profit association for Canadian advertising, marketing, media, and public relations agencies.

Our membership and board of directors represent some of the most recognized and influential agencies in Canada and around the world.

We believe that Brands Need More Canada. Our manifesto identifies four clear pillars to boost the influence of Canada's agencies on the global stage and drive growth in the agency sector through to 2030.