Tough Love

Tough Love

Marketing Services

Toronto, Ontario 210 followers

Built for the labour and love of brands.

About us

Nice to meet you, we’re Tough Love; a female-owned agile strategy collective built for the labour and love of brand building in today’s reality. Tough: Fiercely dedicated to the thinking and aren’t afraid to push, strategically challenging our clients to do what’s needed to shape and steer their brand to success. Love: Passionate strategy partners with fire in our bellies who always work from a place of honesty, kindness, and respect. Whether it’s time, budget or talent, strategy is the missing link for too many brands. We exist to help more teams and brands change that by bridging the gap for all things brand, communications, and social strategy. As integrated planners, we are channel agnostic, bringing strategy-first thinking that guides you to the best channels and executions to solve your challenges. As senior leaders, we add strategy superpowers and challenge you to think differently to accelerate your projects. And we can guarantee a damn good time while doing it. We are the subject matter experts you’ve been searching for here to add value, energy, talent, and, of course, a few laughs along the way. Our strategies aren’t baked frameworks that we sell over and over. We have a variety of different approaches that we pull from to match your business problem. We ultimately want to move people, creativity and brands forward together in a unique way, so using a one-size-fits-all strategy is not how we roll.

Website
https://www.wearetoughlove.co/
Industry
Marketing Services
Company size
2-10 employees
Headquarters
Toronto, Ontario
Type
Partnership

Locations

Employees at Tough Love

Updates

  • In a sea of same, be different.   That’s the approach we took, when Mulvihill Capital Management came to us to create a campaign for one of their ETFs. When we started digging into the category, we immediately noticed that everyone says the same thing. Literally. We compared them.   So we took a different approach, which was to resonate with our DIY investor through simple, relatable humour (in a typically very serious category). We focused on the most important keywords that support why someone would invest in this ETF, and then we had fun with it. #ClientWork

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  • 🏫 👏

    View profile for Lindsay Waugh, graphic

    Freelance Brand, Comms & Social Strategist | Co-Founder of Tough Love | Co-Host of The Two Marketeers Podcast

    A brand doing REAL things for communities alert! 🔥 In a collab with Collective IQ, we crafted the campaign, shopper marketing and integrated channel/comms strategy for MadeGood's Share Some Good initiative across North America. When you nominate a school, you’re giving them a chance to win one of three $20,000 prizes and $2,000 for you. MadeGood is also giving away $200 teacher prizes daily and a year’s supply of MadeGood snacks. Share some good with the schools and teachers who do so much for our communities! Nominate a school and teacher in Canada today at www.sharesomegood.ca or a school and teacher in the US at www.sharesomegood.com. Contest closes on September 26th! Julie Sheldon Tough Love #ShareSomeGood #BackToSchool #CreativeStrategy #ShopperStrategy #ChannelStrategy #CommsStrategy #RealAction #BrandsDoingGood

    • MadeGood’s annual hashtag #ShareSomeGood contest is our way of showing appreciation for the teachers and schools that enrich our communities. 🍏 

When you nominate a school you’re giving them a chance to win one of three $20,000 prizes and $2,000 for you. We’re also giving away daily $200 teacher prizes and a year’s supply of MadeGood snacks. Share some good with the schools and teachers who do so much for our communities!

Nominate a school and teacher in Canada today at www.sharesomegood.ca or a school and teacher in the US at www.sharesomegood.com.
  • That's tough love. 🔥

    View profile for Lindsay Waugh, graphic

    Freelance Brand, Comms & Social Strategist | Co-Founder of Tough Love | Co-Host of The Two Marketeers Podcast

    Don't get me wrong, I LOVE doing cool sh*t. And shiny, tech-forward, trendy ideas CAN deliver incredible results. But you have to be super smart about it. That's strategy. FOCUS. Making sure the fantastic things you want to do for your brand will drive REAL business results. Be on top of what's new and what's next but make darn sure that your ideas deliver to the business. The Two Marketeers, Sean Patrick #strategy #strategicfocus #brandstrategy #creativestrategy #strategyconsulting #campaignstrategy #thebrief #marketingbrief

  • Tough Love reposted this

    View profile for Julie Sheldon, graphic

    Freelance Senior Social Media and Content Strategist. Co-Founder of Tough Love.

    Is the incumbent at a disadvantage when re-pitching the business? Upon initial thought, you may be thinking, “Of course not, they have the inside knowledge that puts them ahead of the other agencies”. But THAT is why I think they are at a disadvantage. They know too much.   👉 They know what legal will and won’t say yes to. 👉 They know what kind of bandwidth their clients have. 👉 They know how siloed the various channel teams are inside of the organization. 👉 They know what they’ve tried to push through before and hasn’t been approved.     So do they then play it too safe for the pitch? Do they present what can work within the confines of the current brand environment, versus thinking bigger? Is the absence of that internal knowledge actually an advantage to the outside agencies who can wow brands with fresh thinking?   Would love to hear your thoughts, agency (and brand!) friends… #marketing #marketingagencies #pitchwork #advertising

  • 📱💡

    View profile for Julie Sheldon, graphic

    Freelance Senior Social Media and Content Strategist. Co-Founder of Tough Love.

    As the future of TikTok remains uncertain, many clients have been asking me if they should keep investing in the platform. In short, yes. Here’s why I believe brands should continue to plan content for TikTok, regardless of the uncertainties: 📱 Innovation Drives Growth: TikTok has revolutionized content consumption habits, pushing brands to be more creative and authentic. This spirit of innovation is something we should carry into all our marketing strategies, no matter the platform. 📱 Engagement Doesn't Vanish Overnight: The relationships and engagement brands have built on TikTok won’t disappear instantly, even if the platform does. The skills your team has developed in creating compelling, short-form content are transferable and will be invaluable across other platforms. 📱 Be Prepared, Not Scared: Instead of pulling back, develop a contingency plan. Start repurposing your TikTok content for other short-form video platforms like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. Diversifying your social media presence can safeguard against potential disruptions. 📱 Audience Insights Are Gold: The data and insights gathered from TikTok can inform broader marketing strategies and help understand what resonates with your audience, guiding more effective content creation across all channels. 📱 First Mover Advantage: If TikTok stays, your continued presence will keep you ahead of competitors who may pause their efforts. If it goes, you’ll be well-prepped to pivot quickly, thanks to your proactive planning. In essence, the skills, creativity, and audience understanding you develop on TikTok can enhance your marketing strategy universally. So, keep jumping on trends, keep engaging, and turn uncertainty into opportunity! #MarketingStrategy #TikTok #BrandEngagement #DigitalMarketing

  • 👏

    View profile for Lindsay Waugh, graphic

    Freelance Brand, Comms & Social Strategist | Co-Founder of Tough Love | Co-Host of The Two Marketeers Podcast

    It's TIME to overcome the fear and finally change the narrative around talent in advertising and marketing. Creative people need motion, stimulus and new experiences to stay fresh. Often, that means not sitting still, staying where you are and doing the same things over and over. Strategy and creatives need flow and agility to think and thrive. It is NOT a bad thing to bring in the right talent for the gig to deliver the best work against the ask. The right person for the job is not always the hot bum in the seat. Change the narrative around creativity, ways of working and talent to open yourselves up to find the right person to come in and collaborate with your teams to bring fresh thinking and lift up not only the work but the team. Agencies need to champion agility in the name of creativity. Clients need to be open to flexible teams that are brought together and consciously crafted to meet their needs and drive their business forward. More on this in ep titled 'Pushing Creative Process Over Creative People'. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts > https://lnkd.in/emcErum5 Sean Patrick, The Two Marketeers #twomarketeers #marketingpodcast #talent #strategyconsulting #pitchprocess #creativeproblemsolvers #collaboration

  • Tough Love reposted this

    View profile for Lindsay Waugh, graphic

    Freelance Brand, Comms & Social Strategist | Co-Founder of Tough Love | Co-Host of The Two Marketeers Podcast

    We say this ALL of the time to our clients during category analysis. You're not being compared to only the brand experiences in YOUR category. Your experience is up against the best experiences in their day-to-day - DoorDash, Uber or Amazon, not solely your direct competitors. Our discoveries bring forward best-in-class learnings to help elevate your brand to stand out within your category by leveraging insights from the best of the best. 👏👏👏 from Ad Age, "Customer experience is no longer the tail, it’s the dog, so brush up on your tech savvy and embrace all the acronyms from CX to AI if you want to stay relevant." Julie Sheldon, Tough Love #CMO #bestinclass #strategyconsulting #marketingstrategy #brandstrategy #digitalstrategy #socialstrategy

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