ONTARIO: Tim Hortons, the restaurant chain, and Mark's, the retailer, were named as the leading Canadian brands in the WARC 100, an annual ranking of the best marketing campaigns and companies according to their business impact.

Now in its fourth year, the WARC 100 is built on a rigorous methodology that tracks 2,000 individual award winners across different effectiveness and strategy awards programs held around the world.

Looking at the results for Canada showed that Tim Hortons was the top-performing brand, assisted in no small part by the "Tims Next Door" experiential campaign which transformed a normal residential home into a restaurant overnight.

Mark's was the runner up in the brand rankings, and occupied the same spot for specific campaigns with "The Colder It Gets", a data-driven initiative offering themed promotions based on the weather.

The Ontario Women's Directorate claimed the honour of the most successful campaign with "#WhoWillYouHelp", an effort seeking to tackle sexual violence.

Not only was Leo Burnett Toronto the shop behind this initiative, but it also led the overall agency standings in Canada – partly thanks to its work on the "Like a Girl" campaign for Always in the US.

"Leo Burnett Toronto was boosted into the number one agency position as a result of its contribution to the US '#LikeAGirl – Unstoppable' campaign and for '#WhoWillYouHelp,'" WARC's report covering the best Canadian performers said.

"This performance put Leo Burnett into the number one agency network position in Canada."

Cossette Montréal took second place in the agency rankings, and thus ensured that Cossette held the equivalent status in the network competition, too.

The combined strength of its Vancouver and Toronto offices propelled DDB Worldwide to third place in the agency network standings, with PHD in fourth and TAXI in fifth.

Data sourced from WARC