Key Points:
- Victoria Adams built Excentric Agency into one of Ottawa’s most respected agencies through long-term relationships, responsible marketing, and senior-level strategic guidance.
- By combining creative excellence with deep technical expertise, Excentric supports organizations operating in highly specialized and regulated industries across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
- Victoria believes the future of marketing belongs to agencies that prioritize trust, judgment, and human insight over tactics alone.
In a marketing landscape crowded with noise, shortcuts, and cookie-cutter design, experience has quietly become a differentiator.
For Victoria Adams, Founder and Creative Director of Excentric Agency, that experience comes not only from decades in creative roles, but from time spent inside complex corporate environments where accountability, clarity, and trust matter just as much as creativity.
Established in 2004, Excentric Agency has grown into one of Ottawa’s most respected agencies, serving both locally and internationally recognized brands. Under the leadership of Victoria Adams and partner Kristy Smith, the agency has become known for its relationship-first approach, responsible marketing philosophy, and rare balance of creative excellence and technical expertise.
For more than 25 years, Victoria has navigated both sides of the marketing equation — agency and client — and that dual perspective has shaped Excentric into a relationship-driven agency grounded in disciplined thinking, long-term partnerships, and what she calls responsible marketing.
For Victoria, responsible marketing means making thoughtful recommendations, respecting client investment, and focusing on work that genuinely creates value rather than unnecessary complexity.
“In today’s world, people are overwhelmed with content,” she says. “Extraordinary work is memorable. It stands out from the noise, differentiates brands from competitors, and delivers meaningful results.”
“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the extra,” Victoria says. “Doing things well is the baseline. What matters is bringing the extra — the care, the strategy, the effort, and the accountability that turns something ordinary into something extraordinary.”
A Career Spanning Creative and Corporate Worlds
Victoria began her career at a small design agency in Ottawa, Canada, before joining The Conference Board of Canada as a Design Specialist. She later spent a decade at Nordion, an international life sciences company in the nuclear sector, where she served as Marketing Manager.
Those years gave Victoria valuable corporate management experience and an understanding of how large organizations operate internally.
Her experience within the life sciences and nuclear sector also helped shape one of Excentric’s strongest industry niches. Over the years, the agency’s Nuclear & Irradiation sector client base expanded organically across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom through referrals and long-standing industry relationships.
Today, Excentric supports clients across more than 13 industry sectors, including health and pharma, aerospace, defence, finance, technology, manufacturing, education, member-based associations, public sector, non-profit organizations, and more.
Many of these industries are highly technical or heavily regulated environments where trust, clarity, and accuracy matter.
“Not only do you need to understand the ideal target market,” Victoria explains, “you also need to understand the client’s internal challenges, limitations, and pressures. That’s where experience really matters.”
Growing Excentric Through Relationships
Over the years, Excentric Agency has grown organically and quickly, not through advertising or outbound sales, but through relationships.
As former colleagues and clients moved into new roles at different organizations, they continued to bring Excentric with them.
“We have never advertised, and we’ve never had a sales team,” Victoria explains. “Our growth has come almost entirely through referrals or clients finding us organically online. When a client leaves one organization and brings you into another one, that speaks volumes.”
What makes Excentric feel different emotionally, she believes, is the depth of the relationships the agency builds over time.
“Our clients know they can lean on us,” Victoria says. “For guidance, for ideas, for problem-solving, or simply for getting things done. They can be open and honest about the landscape inside their organization, and we’ll help work through whatever may be keeping them up at night.”
Because many client relationships span years, in some cases more than two decades, the agency develops a deep understanding of not only the brand but the people behind it.
“Their work becomes second nature to us,” she says. “We understand their preferences, their pressures, their audience, and how they like to work. That level of familiarity creates trust and makes collaboration incredibly efficient.”
One of the best pieces of advice Victoria ever received came from one of Excentric’s very first clients.
He told me, “Treat your clients as you would your friends, and you will be successful. That stayed with me.”
That philosophy continues to shape how Excentric communicates, collaborates, and supports clients today.
“It’s not just business, it’s personal,” Victoria says. “Our job is to make our clients look good and make their lives easier. If we can remove stress, bring clarity, and help them feel confident walking into a meeting or presenting to leadership, then we’ve done our job well.”
Strengthening the Agency for the Future
Three years ago, Victoria made a pivotal leadership decision. After years as the sole owner, she brought on Kristy Smith as an equal partner.
Kristy had already been with Excentric for more than a decade, earning the trust of clients and proving herself as a highly capable and respected leader. After years of supporting Excentric clients as a web developer, she brings deep technical expertise to her role as Technical Director and plays a critical role in overseeing development, SEO, security, hosting, and maintenance.
“As our client base grew, particularly in regulated sectors like health, pharma, defence, and nuclear, it became clear that creative strength alone wasn’t enough,” Victoria explains. “We needed to be equally strong technically.”
That decision transformed Excentric into an agency that is equally strong in creative brand and technical web expertise, a combination Victoria believes is still surprisingly rare within the industry.
“Our website says ‘Where Creative Brilliance Meets Technical Genius,’” she says. “That balance is a huge benefit to our clients because they don’t have to choose between beautiful, creative, and technical confidence.”
Today, Excentric supports secure managed hosting environments and complex technical builds while still maintaining the high-end creative direction and storytelling the agency is known for.
“And honestly, it’s just more fun with Kristy in the picture. We genuinely enjoy working together.”
A Highly Visual Approach to Corporate Marketing
Excentric is known for its signature creative style that is highly visual, polished, corporate, and intentionally not boring.
“People don’t want to read massive blocks of dry content,” Victoria explains. “We tell stories visually. Even highly technical organizations benefit from beautiful design, motion, strong messaging, and emotional connection.”
For Victoria, extraordinary is not just about the quality of the work.
“It’s about the client being genuinely happy with both the experience of working with us and the final product,” Victoria explains. “And internally, it means our team members feel valued, inspired, and truly enjoy working at Excentric.”
That commitment to creative excellence has earned Excentric more than 60 international design awards.
Victoria is also an official expert judge for the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts (AIVA), contributing her perspective to global programs such as the W3 Awards and the Communicator Awards.
Marketing in the Era of AI
Victoria sees artificial intelligence reshaping the marketing industry, particularly in content generation and workflow efficiency. Used well, AI can help teams move faster, uncover ideas, and reduce time spent on repetitive tasks. But she believes the real advantage still comes from the people directing it.
“AI can help accelerate ideas, research, and production,” Victoria explains. “But it still takes experience, knowledge, and creative thinking to truly understand a client’s audience and tell a compelling story. Technology can enhance great marketing, but it can’t replace it.”
For Victoria, the risk is not AI itself — it is using AI without strategic direction. Without a clear understanding of the brand, audience, competitive landscape, and desired emotional response, AI-generated content can quickly become generic.
“AI is only as good as its director,” she says. “Someone still has to evaluate the output, refine the thinking, protect the brand voice, and make the judgment calls. Otherwise, it is just content without the strategic guidance of the brand’s unique essence.”
That perspective reflects a broader shift in marketing: the most effective use of AI is not full automation, but partnership. AI may increase speed and efficiency, but human judgment remains essential for nuance, originality, ethics, cultural context, and emotional connection.
For Excentric, that means embracing AI where it adds value, while keeping strategy, creativity, and accountability firmly in human hands.
Leadership, Family, and Life Outside of Work
Looking back at her entrepreneurial journey, Victoria says it’s difficult to point to just one thing she’s most proud of. One of the biggest was taking the leap to start Excentric Agency in 2004 after leaving a successful decade-long career in the corporate world.
“Change is scary,” she says, “but it felt right. I’ve always believed life should stay exciting.”
Family is another source of pride.
Victoria credits her husband, James, a cybersecurity sales professional, for his unwavering support through every major life decision throughout her career.
Their two children both pursued creative careers of their own. Dawson, a Graphic Design graduate, now works full-time at Excentric as a digital designer, while Alexandra, a film program graduate, works in video animation in Montreal.
“Seeing their creativity develop in completely different ways has been amazing to watch,” Victoria says.
Professionally, she still values the simple things most — client emails saying “Your work is amazing,” or hearing that sales increased after a website launch.
“That never gets old,” she says. “That’s what it’s all about.”
Outside of work, Victoria admits she doesn’t have an extensive list of hobbies. “I work for fun, it’s an addiction.”
She stays active in her home gym, but when she truly needs to recharge, she heads for the beach.
“Grace Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos is my favourite place to reset, think clearly, and slow down a little,” she says.
Lately, she has become increasingly aware of how quickly time passes.
“It’s hard to believe it’s been over 20 years since starting Excentric,” Victoria reflects. “That makes me want to prioritize travel and experiences more intentionally moving forward.”
Looking Ahead
Victoria believes the future of Excentric is not about becoming the biggest agency — it’s about continuing to evolve without losing the values that built the company in the first place.
“We always keep an eye on emerging technologies and adapt where it genuinely adds value,” she explains. “But at the same time, we never want to lose the human side of what makes Excentric special.”
Victoria says the agency’s future will continue to focus on thoughtful growth, extraordinary creativity, strong technical expertise, and long-term client relationships.
“Honestly, we want to keep doing what we’re doing because it’s served us well,” she says. “We’ve built something grounded in trust, creativity, and care, and that’s not something we take for granted.”
“Excentric life is good.”
Quotes
