How a two-person ad shop chases big-agency results
- BaD Mktg
- 29 minutes ago
- 4 min read
Nickie Shobeiry
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published 48 minutes ago
Yotam Dor (left) and Ian Buck are trying to reshape the ad agency model.
Supplied
In traditional advertising agencies, crafting a marketing strategy can take weeks, and the most senior people are not always doing the day-to-day work. Clients are billed at an hourly rate.
BaD Mktg has taken a different approach. The firm was founded in 2023 by Toronto marketing veterans and long-time colleagues Ian Buck and Yotam Dor, with a client roster that includes Cadillac Fairview and Jamieson Vitamins. The partners rejected time-based billing in favour of project fees, while embracing artificial intelligence to streamline execution.
The two go hand in hand. By using AI, the two-person shop is able to work more efficiently without compromising creative thinking. It allows senior experts to stay directly involved, while delivering projects faster and with greater cost certainty for clients.
BaD Mktg hit $1.5-million in revenue by its second year of operation, with a profit margin of 38 per cent – figures more typical of a 10- to 15-person agency, Mr. Buck says.
Accenture’s Canadian Pulse of Change data found that 86 per cent of Canadian C-suite leaders plan to increase AI spending in 2026, with 78 per cent seeing AI as more beneficial for revenue growth than cost reduction. BaD Mktg is a case in point.
Early in the business, the partners launched an AI tool called BaD Ideas. It was a place to “download” their brains, Mr. Dor says.
The partners typically upload client briefs into the AI tool, which they developed in-house, meaning no client data is accessible by external AI companies. From there it’s an iterative process, with BaD Ideas drafting content guided by Mr. Dor and Mr. Buck, which they then edit and finalize.
By ‘learning’ how he and Mr. Buck think, Mr. Dor says BaD Ideas has helped them create faster and better results, in ways they know works for their clients. They’re able to quickly brainstorm creative concepts and turn them around for clients in six days instead of six weeks.
AI is disrupting the practice of charging by the hour with increased productivity, says Nuša Fain, interim academic director and assistant professor of technology innovation management at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business. “With technology speeding things up, billable hours shorten.”
The big opportunity is being able to do more with less, “which is quite exciting, particularly for small businesses,” Ms. Fain says.
The BaD Mktg partners recognized that clients were not accustomed to such fast turnarounds, and they might even be suspicious of them. If a client is convinced a solid strategy needs those full six weeks, says Mr. Buck, “the actual human response is, ‘well, this is not good.’”
To manage the potential mistrust of AI usage, Ms. Fain recommends that businesses involve clients in all stages of a project’s development, so they fully understand the work is being tailored to their needs.
Mr. Buck says in the traditional agencies where he used to work, someone at his level of seniority would be too expensive to stay close to the business once an account was won. “When we go to our clients (now), you get the two senior people. We’re in every meeting,” he says.
AI has also helped the firm with content production, like video work for clients. In the past, the partners would present mood boards and read out scripts, relying on client imaginations to visualize the results before production. Thanks to generative AI, Mr. Buck and Mr. Dor can now create rough, animated storyboards, so clients can see and hear a concept from the jump.
Some of the AI storyboard videos worked so well that clients wanted to go with those versions. While AI is “almost there” in terms of life-like video quality, says Mr. Buck, “you have to reel them back.”
He says AI storyboards have helped make it “infinitely easier” for clients to say yes to proposals, but the partners were still manually managing administration. In March, 2026, Mr. Dor built their second AI tool: a ‘chief of staff’ they nicknamed Goodie. It was created with Claude code and multiple applications that pull from calendars, calls, texts, e-mails, reports and other documentation.
“We wake up every day and we know exactly what we need to do for every single client,” Mr. Dor says. “It immediately lowers the cortisol levels.”
Thanks to Goodie, they can focus more of their energies on creative work. While they have a freelance roster of marketing professionals they hire as needed, the partners are still the agency’s only two full-time employees, and they say they’re comfortably on their way to hitting $2-million in revenue this year.
“In an ad agency, talent is the biggest cost you have,” Mr. Buck says. “[AI] literally changes the business.”
The AI space is developing so rapidly that he won’t forecast how else it can be transformative for BaD Mktg. But the company will continue to push what’s possible. “All we can do is keep trying different things, have fun with the tools now available, and just keep unlocking stuff,” Mr. Buck says.
