To cut through in today’s highly fragmented and hyper-competitive marketplace, brands and advertising need to be unignorable.

Terry O'Malley

And making them unignorable may require overcoming accepted beliefs and practices — in other words, “Killing Sacred Cows”.

This philosophy reflects the creative and strategic underpinning of many of the successful communications campaigns developed by Toronto-based agency john st., one of Canada’s fastest-rising and most highly awarded marketing companies. john st. President Arthur Fleischmann and Creative Director Angus Tucker — two of the agency’s founding partners — will share their unique perspective on advertising and branding at the annual Terry O’Malley Lecture on Advertising and Marketing on Wednesday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m. in the Sean O’Sullivan Theatre.

This year marks the ninth installment of the annual lecture series that honours advertising legend Terry O’Malley, a native of St. Catharines and one of the best-known figures in modern Canadian advertising.

O’Malley is the long-time creative director and partner in former Toronto-based Vickers and Benson Advertising. In more than 30 years at V&B, O’Malley helped build the agency into one of the leading brands in the Canadian advertising industry. O’Malley’s creative contributions spanned a wide spectrum of businesses and public service categories, from quick service restaurants (McDonald’s Restaurants) to breweries (Carling Red Cap Ale) to a role as key strategist on the federal Liberal Party’s Red Leaf Communications team that helped win electoral victories for former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

The Terry O’Malley Lecture in Marketing and Advertising is hosted by the Department of Communications, Popular Culture and Film at Brock University.

This event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required. To reserve your tickets, contact the Centre for the Arts Box Office by calling 905-688-5550 x3257.