Archive | March, 2010

Rethink Toronto

13 Mar

From: The Toronto Star (Wednesday March 10, 2010)
Vancouver ad agency to open T.O. office – Award-winning Rethink eyes nationwide profile
By Dana Flavelle Business Reporter

Independent Vancouver advertising agency Rethink Communications is moving into the big leagues, opening its first office in Toronto in a bid to capture more business.

The award-winning firm, whose ads for A&W and Mr. Lube have been a hit with viewers, says it was time to move up.

“We’ve grown as far as we can in Vancouver,” agency co-founder Chris Staples said in an interview Tuesday.

“There’s a ton of opportunity in Toronto. About 90 per cent of the marketing business in Canada is there.”

The move was overdue, Staples said. “We’ve had to turn down a lot of business from our national clients based in Toronto because we didn’t have an office there.”

Rethink’s national clients currently include Solo Mobile, Sympatico and Sobeys.

The Toronto office will have a strong digital capacity, Hegan said.

Rethink says it has succeeded by operating on a different business model from other agencies. As the number of media “channels” exploded in the past decade to include Facebook and Twitter as well as traditional TV and billboard ads, clients’ budgets remained the same, Staples said.

“We’re very different from other agencies. We don’t have divisions or silos. You get one account manager, who’s a generalist who knows how to do everything and they connect you with the specialists like Dre, who’s a digital specialist,” Staples said. “It’s a way more efficient system. There are fewer layers. Your dollar can stretch further.”

The agency offers a kind of performance guarantee, called the “Rethink Rebate,” which amounts to 5 per cent of its fee if certain targets aren’t achieved.

Rethink Toronto will be located at 110 Spadina Avenue.

For more information, visit: Rethink Toronto
Follow Rethink Toronto on Twitter

CoverGirl LashBlast Turnstiles

1 Mar

To showcase the category’s largest brush, a new media space was created – the subway exit turnstiles themselves. Dramatizing the benefit of LashBlast Length, the exit turnstiles were wrapped in yellow to look like an extremely long brush, and the crossbars were wrapped in black to demonstrate the extremely long lashes you get as a result of using the mascara.

Advertising Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi Canada

T.O Restaurants & Social Media

1 Mar

From BlogTO: Toronto Restaurants Have a Growing Appetite for Social Media by Erin Bury

When it comes to food, everyone’s a critic. Restaurants have always relied on word of mouth from satisfied diners to spread the word about their menu – especially in Toronto where there are new restaurants popping up all the time. With the explosion of social media tools, it’s easier than ever for foodies and food-lovers alike to share experiences – I always Tweet out my new favourite spots.

We recently compiled a list of the Top 10 Toronto foodies to follow on Twitter. But what about the restaurants themselves? How are they embracing social media tools – or are they? Some local restaurants are adopting new media tools, and some still have far to go.

One local restaurant recently gathered the tech foodie community for a Twitter-themed night out. A friend invited me to the Eats, Beats and Tweets event at Queen West’s Nyood restaurant, held on the opening weekend of Winterlicious. This special two-night event celebrated all things tasty and tech; diners feasted on a tasting menu while Tweets about the food were displayed on the walls, and Twitter-friendly DJs kept the crowd entertained.

Restaurants in Toronto are also jumping on the Twitter bandwagon – Pizzeria Libretto (@PizzaLibretto) Tweets photos of daily specials; the Gladstone (@GladstoneHotel) crowdsources new menu items, and my personal favourite, (@Poutinerie), shares news about upcoming locations around the city.

Another notable example is Mildred’s Temple Kitchen (@mildredstemple), who ‘pepper’ their stream with hashtags, photos, videos, and replies to future diners (food pun intended).

And if the tech crowd won’t go to the restaurant, the restaurant will go to where iPhones congregate. Local social media darling Freshii is starting to pop up as choice caterer at events around the city – from ING Direct’s recent Meet and Tweet mixer to the popular Third Tuesday social media event.

One place restaurants are lacking? Their websites. There must be an unwritten rule in the food industry that says that Flash is king. Every site has catchy music playing while images whiz across the screen – any web developer’s nightmare (just ask Bretton MacLean).

So what’s the next step for restaurants? As an iPhone addict I hope restaurants leverage mobile applications. Right now third-party applications like Urbanspoon are the go-to resource for diners looking to get on-the-go advice on where to eat. Restaurants need to take advantage of new sites like Foursquare (Magic Oven is currently looking at Foursquare promotions) and mobile coupon platforms like Clip Mobile to offer specials to consumers and bring in local traffic.

So while you can probably find your favourite restaurant on Twitter, tech foodies around the city like @SpotlightCity and @KarmaCakeDotCa agree that restaurants are just scratching the surface of capitalizing on social media tools to build their following and attract new customers. But one thing’s for sure – the tech community is looking forward to seeing what they cook up next.

Find more mouth-watering Tweets on blogTO’s Twitter list of Toronto restaurants.

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