Greg Hahn Set to Make 'Mischief' with Canadian Agency No Fixed Address

Multi-award-wining creative director Greg Hahn has found a new ad agency home.

And, in keeping with the often surprising and stir-provoking creative product that has been a hallmark of his brilliant career to date, the move will most certainly be viewed in the industry as unexpected.

The former BBDO New York chief creative officer, who left the agency less than two months ago, is partnering with Canadian agency sensation No Fixed Address to open an office in New York City.

The new agency is named Mischief @ No Fixed Address (NFA).

“I remember thinking a while back, that for any big agency within a holding company, the model that would be most threatening would be an agency filled with A-list talent, custom-built around each client’s specific needs with streamlined process and less overhead,” says Greg. “Then, after I found myself suddenly outside that system, I learned that there was someone in Canada who was doing exactly that. NFA was my first call. It was instant love. And so here we are.”

Mischief is already doing some project work with client Kraft Heinz.

No Fixed Address was launched in Toronto three-and-a-half years ago by ad industry veterans Serge Rancourt and Dave Lafond.

“One of the guiding principles of our agency from the start, and it’s a promise we have made to all our clients, is that we will never stop in our search for the very best talent,” says NFA co-founder Rancourt. “Nothing says that better than our partnership with Greg Hahn.”

Greg's near 15-year, award-filled career at BBDO was capped this year when BBDO New York was named Webby Agency of the Year at the 2020 Webby Awards.

“We have been looking for an opportunity to introduce our agency model into the U.S. market, but first we needed to find the right people and the right fit,” says NFA co-founder Lafond. “So much of this industry is about chemistry and Greg and I just clicked immediately. We had ideas exploding right from the very start.”

In explaining the significance of the name ‘Mischief,’ Greg says: “Mischief suggests playfulness and a world that is free of fear. It’s about an environment where you are free to fail and also free to excel. Fearlessness is where you can dream bigger. We want to use that to produce work that creates a stir.”

Joining Greg at Mischief New York is president Kerry McKibbin. McKibbin was most recently senior vice president and group account director with MullenLowe US in Boston. McKibbin and Lafond worked together from 2005 to 2011 during six years of dramatic growth at Publicis in Toronto.

Greg is NFA’s second major creative hire in the past two months. In April, the agency brought on board as a partner highly regarded creative leader Jordan Doucette, the former executive creative director and chief creative officer of Leo Burnett in Chicago. Doucette has since been named president of the NFA creative agency in Toronto.

NFA launched in Toronto in November 2016. It was built from scratch by Rancourt and Lafond, who spent 11 years together building the Publicis brand in Canada. NFA’s unique operating model strips away overhead, overburdened processes, fixed hours, inflexible compensation models, silos, and holding company pressures, all while investing in top talent.   

NFA struck a chord right from the beginning, not only among clients, but also within the ad industry itself. The agency has performed beyond expectations across the board, winning blue chip clients and steadily adding leading industry talent in all disciplines, which has fuelled even further growth.

Within its first year, NFA was ranked among the top three digital agencies in Canada by industry trade magazine Strategy. After its second year, NFA was awarded silver in Ad Age’s 2018 International Small Agency of the Year contest.

Recently, NFA was awarded five cubes at the ADC Awards in New York City, including a gold and three bronze for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s “Lolli: The Exhibit Nobody Wants To Talk About.” 

The agency has a full-time staff of 140 people and a roster of 47 clients.

NFA clients include such leading brand names as AB Inbev, Questrade, J.P. Wiser’s, Little Caesars, Dairy Farmers of Ontario and Mattamy Homes.