This Smile Brought to You by Science
Posted by
Kara
As a pretty intense dog lover, I was super excited when I found out that Fusion was going to be working with Kane Biotech on the launch of their new pet oral health care product StrixNB. I was even more excited to be a part of the team that got to put this launch together and I'd say I jumped into it with both paws (come on, you knew there were going to be pet puns).
Right away, the focus was on big doggy smiles and the key differences that StrixNB brings to the table in oral health care water additives - a strong scientific background and a guarantee of only safe, human-grade ingredients. Sounds like a reason to smile to me! Maybe it was my love of the subject matter, but the look for this one and the pieces themselves seemed to come together almost on their own, and I can say that spending several weeks staring at these happy puppy grins was a total blast.
The product launch was centered around two big events in February - CenCan, an annual veterinary conference in Manitoba, and National Pet Dental Health Month.
To start, we put together a package to send to vets around the city, introducing the product and informing them of a promotion that would be running throughout Pet Dental Health Month. This information lives on one side of a fold-out poster, while the other side is a non-branded promo of Dental Health Month, advising pet owners to ask their veternarian about oral health care . We also included pins for vets to wear for this same purpose, and of course a dog bowl full of Hershey's Kisses, with a note on the bottom that every kiss should be so sweet (since StrixNB has the added benefit of improving doggy breath). On a side note, we ended up printing extra of the Pet Dental Health Month poster to fill requests from the vets.
Next, we created a tradeshow booth for use at CenCan. A special guest at this event stole the show and became quite the media darling - Leo, Barrett's Vizsla. Leo worked it for the camera, set off by the gorgeous booth that housed bottles of Strix and a fact sheet, which can double as a piece of the sales kit. The launch was picked up and featured on various media outlits, including the Winnipeg Free Press and CTV.
Finally, we developed a POP display for clinics who are carrying StrixNB, and a sales kit for the sales team to use down the road while continuing to sell their fabulous product.
I learned a lot about pet oral health care while working on this project and can't wait to get my little gal started on a StrixNB program - along with her regular scaling and brushing, of course. And if you want to get your dog started too, give your vet a call, as it will only be available through vet clinics. Cheers to healthy puppy teeth and the end of doggy breath, and thanks to Kane Biotech for making my job so much fun over the last couple months.
Zombies, eskimos and more take over Fusion
Posted by
Kara
Here at Fusion, we think nothing of getting an email from Dave, our owner/CEO, that looks like this:
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The above red-eyed, green-skinned zombie is Dave. Far from being a scary brain-eating undead, he's a pretty fun guy. So when we here at Fusion decided (on October 30 at 3:30pm) that we should come to work in costume for Halloween this year, no one had a problem with that - least of all Dave.
So this week our monthly potluck was held on Halloween and in attendance were The NHL Lockout, a MuayThai fighter, an Eskimo (complete with sled dog), a taco, a spider, a terrifying lion, a jet pilot, Peter Pan and a guest appearance from one ridiculously cute tiger.
We work pretty hard around here, where timelines are always ticking and deadlines looming, but luckily we manage to have a pretty good time doing it. Happy Halloween, everyone - hope yours has been as fun as ours so far.
Another St. Vital Centre campaign leaves the nest
Posted by
Kara
It's always exciting when a new campaign launches, but this year's fall campaign for St. Vital Centre was one I could hardly wait to share. Luckily, my wait is over, as the Your Life. Your Style campaign has officially taken off! This season, we've turned the spotlight on our shoppers and are letting eight of them show the city why St. Vital Centre is the place to find your style.
We prefaced the official campaign with a pre-campaign, focused on our search for shoppers with a uniquely defined sense of style and a personality destined for local fame. The result was a slew of fantastic applicants which we narrowed down and interviewed, eventually choosing eight stylish and unique personalities to feature.
We brought in Alana of F2 Styling + Events, who hit the ball out of the park with styling that showcased each person's unique fashion sense perfectly. Photoshoot day was a blast and our winners each got to feel like a star as they were primped and styled and sent out to work it for the camera. All of the energy and enthusiasm from each person made photoshoot day a blast, and we carried each personality through into the doodles surrounding each person in their respective campaign pieces.
The resulting creative is up now around the city, online and in the Centre. To further the fun, the campaign also features a contest component which involves a custom Facebook Connect app - built by our good friends at Visual Lizard - that walks users through a simple and fun game to determine your style type, with each style being linked back to one of our finalists. Check out the contest at www.YourFallLifestyle.com to play and be entered to win a $1,000 Giftcard!
As usual, we have our wonderful client to thank for allowing us to continually push each campaign to be better than the last. It's a team effort to be sure and one we can't get enough of! And speaking of... we're now on to Christmas. Stay tuned. ;)
The Making of a Gig Poster
Posted by
Kara
If my funds and my wall space were unlimited I'd have hundreds of concert posters. A hand screen-printed poster is right up there with a great letterpressed piece for things that make me swoon and my credit card cower and I know I'm not alone among designers in feeling that gig posters are one of life's great art forms.
I think it's often easy for many people to look at something like a screen printed concert poster and not realize the extrodinary amount of time and talent that goes into producing one of these babies. DKNG Studios made a fantastic video that showcases the "making of" process from start to finish of a fantastic poster done for one of my current favourite bands, The Black Keys.
Since the embed code isn't working, you'll have to check out the video the old fashioned way - just click here to check it out. I highly recommend you do.
(Bonus Tip: Listen to "Rave On Buddy Holly", a tribute album to Buddy Holly by a ton of great artists, by following that Black Keys link - Great background music for whatever you are doing today.)
Are You Pinterested?
Posted by
Kara
A friend sent me a link the other day for a site that I had, up to that point, not yet been using. Maybe I'm behind the curve on this one, but for those of you like me who have not gotten involved in this particular social media/sharing platform, Pinterest is an application which allows you to create personal moodboards, store them online and share them with your "followers." When you sign up, you drag the "Pin It" icon to your quick links bar in Firefox or Safari (apparently it is more complicated in Internet Explorer - but who's still using that anyway? ;). After doing this, anytime you see something you like on any website and want to add to one of your mood boards, you simply hit "Pin It" and there you go - you've now declared your love for this item and can share that with all of your friends and admirers who are no doubt stalking your Pinterest account waiting for you to see something you love so that they can love it too.
All jokes aside, I did sign up for this a couple days and though I have yet to really get into it, I like the idea of having an online place to store things that I want to save as reference or inspiration rather than pulling them into folders on my desktop. The item links right back to the source, saving you from storing urls. When you log in to your account, you can see the boards of people that you "follow", and it's fun to see what has caught the eye of my sister in Toronto or my sister-in-law in Calgary lately. Pinterest gives you the option of linking to your Facebook account, taking the sharing a bit further. This might be where I draw the line, as I'm not sure I need to broadcast to all of my friends everytime I see a pretty letterpress card or a haristyle I might want to try, but maybe that's just me. So what about you - are you Pinteresting?
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