My perspective challenged

October 6th was Challenge Day at F.H. Collins. I was there as one of the twenty-five facilitators, with 100 grade eight students and 40 student mentors. It was a day of breaking down barriers, playing get-to-know-each-other games, small group sharing "if you really knew me, you would know that...”, and finally a revealing of very personal issues in a crossing-the-line activity. You might ask why a brand communications strategist would be there whooping and hollering “I feel good,” giving out hundreds of hugs and sharing the love and tears of the day. I did ask myself that in the morning, but as the day went on I was totally caught up in the event. To learn more about what actually happened, visit www.challengeday.org

I am always challenged by how to communicate so that you are heard, understood, and able to change someone’s mind or attitude. We are working on a project targeting graduating students with the message to have a substance-free grad. After much research on underage drinking and the inevitable parties that surround graduation time, I was beginning to despair about developing a successful campaign concept. Despite the fact that there is so much information and messaging already about the consequences of binge drinking, our teens still do it.

F.H. Collins vice-principal, Christine Klaassen St. Pierre, invited me to facilitate up-coming Challenge Day when I was interviewing her for this project. That’s how it happened that I was there breaking down my own barriers and judgments, learning to understand, respect and, yes, love our youth. I came to believe that they are good, smart, and that they have the capacity to change and make the right choices. Fear, separation, isolation, and loneliness are so much a part of their lives and the root of almost every destructive behaviour.

“Knowing our audience” has a whole new meaning for me. We need to open our human side, and realize the issues are deeper than we think. A dialogue with the audience that comes from acceptance, love and respect gives a whole new perspective and hope on which to build a message that has potential to make a difference.

Branding with Dennis

They say the shoemaker's kids run around barefoot. What about brand communications firms—do they run around brandless? We’re so busy clarifying brands for our clients, do we ever take time to examine our own?

We put the old proverb to the test July 14 when we engaged in an internal study session, taking advantage of a rare opportunity to share brand communication strategies with Dennis de la Haye.

Formerly a senior brand consultant with the renowned branding agency MetaDesign in Berlin, Dennis spent an afternoon with our agency, sharing with us his understanding of the value of a brand, corporate identity versus image, and brand modeling. He also led us through a couple of exercises that had us examine our own brand and brand values, and left us with some ideas around prioritizing future brand values.

By the end of the day, we had discovered a number of things about ourselves, and drawn these conclusions:

• Dennis should come to work for us
• The 3 C’s of successful branding really are consistency, consistency and consistency
• Through engagement in the workshop exercises, our core brand values were confirmed
• Except for that “radical” thing…we’ll be examining that further
• Our brand strategists are well shod. Every one of them.

In his opening remarks, Dennis stated his belief that good design is good business, and that a strong brand image is based on a strong identity. We share those beliefs and strive to reflect them in our own agency and in the work we do for our clients.

After the workshop, we learned one more valuable lesson—you actually can have a successful barbeque in your parking lot on a hot summer’s evening.

think new thoughts - Go!

Creative director Valerie Theoret recently participated in a one-month artistic direction and management workshop at the Quebec Institute of Graphic Communications in Montreal. Last week, she shared a sampling of what she learned with the Aasman team during a half-day workshop of our own.

The exercises Valerie directed expanded our views on the creative process and how to confront design challenges in innovative ways. When asked how the course relates to current design trends, Valerie said:

“Finding an idea will never be out of date. Our job is to know how to think and how the brain works in particular ways. These exercises are a useful tool to get rid of certain set patterns and remind us to think in another way, to go somewhere new.

Designers think about a problem before starting practical execution. There are tons and tons of ways to tap into creativity that allow us to solve problems with originality. At Aasman we all come from different backgrounds and there are some new staff members, so it's nice to have these tools we can use together. Plus, it's a lot of fun." 

The Aasman team left the workshop feeling energized and refreshed. What exactly did we learn? Well, if we told you our secrets, we'd have to kill you.

Check out our portfolio on a regular basis to see how our new ways of thinking are translated into unique concepts.