Friday, November 25, 2011

gordongroup wins gold for development of lifestyle brand within the real estate sector.

A winning Residential Lifestyle Brand was introduced to the Ottawa market earlier this year from Ashcroft Homes. gordongroup along with stakeholder participants won an International Davey award for the Condominium community Q West. 





The Giants Behind the Davey







The Davey Awards may be for smaller organizations, but the judges have big reputations. The Davey is sanctioned and judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, an invitation-only body consisting of top-tier professionals from a "Who's Who" of acclaimed media, advertising, and marketing firms. IAVA members include executives from organizations such as Condè Nast, Michael Kors Inc., Disney, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Microsoft, HBO, Monster.com, MTV, Polo Ralph Lauren, Sotheby's Institute of Art, Victoria's Secret, Howcast and many more.


                              
You can watch the video here :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEh-nsmLsA0

Plastic Industry Brand Building



This video was produced and directed in conjunction with our great friend and expert Chris Mullington

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Renewal of Client Engagements is Vital to Business Success


An important aspect of new business year after year is the parallel responsibility of effective customer care, while bringing together all the key skills in support of design of the product and brand building. Both aspects of client engagement have equal importance and become core to delivering the highest standard of performance.

Using design-thinking terminology, one can look at extreme users to define the client profile. Extreme users are two opposite ends of a profile or cross section of a community with a median. From the point of view of twenty-five years in business, gordongroup has had the benefit of working with many clients across the spectrum. Our experience extends to Federal Departments, Small and Medium sized businesses, Non Governmental Organizations, Private sector Enterprise, Universities, Developers, Embassies and Mom and Pop organizations; a few examples demonstrate the nature of our client groups.



As a multi-disciplinary company, we place core focus on customer care. Our project management includes customer relations and responsive frontline support. Moreover, clients have full access to specific expertise at any time during the project term. In many cases our Creative Director, Digital Director and Writing Leads including Direct-marketing representatives are full participants and perform an integral role at the table, in the interest of getting the best possible outcomes on behalf of our clients.

An important fact about the practical business of producing stellar brand solutions is the support offered under our customer care management. 

Customer care must take into account the diverse organizational nature and management structure of different client groups.  The client has an obligation to be transparent with both their internal and external organization membership, an extension of these groups includes partner stakeholders who may perform a central role influencing the client organizations success. Stakeholders may include governance bodies, trade organizations, volunteers and many others who are willing to make contributions supporting the client outreach and brand building. Customer care managed properly ensures brand building is streamlined and inclusive.

Larger administrations rely on gordongroup to put bridges in place to ensure all participants, to the degree possible take part and contribute toward the client project mandate. Collaboration brings greater opportunity, with ideas or innovation that will maximize results.

Bringing people together, moving beyond “buy in” and ensuring meaningful contribution is a core role gordongroup performs. Research proves that a collective approach or working together among disparate teams or across organization locations, disciplines or hierarchies leads to the best possible outcomes. 


High Performance Team: This is a group that meets all the conditions of real teams, and has members who are also deeply committed to each other's personal growth and success. That commitment usually transcends the team. The high performance team significantly outperforms all other like teams, and outperforms all reasonable expectations given its membership.
(Jon R. Katzenbach, 1992)


“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
Henry Ford (American industrialist, 1863-1947) 





Thursday, September 15, 2011

World of Stock Supplied By Francesco Santalucia

a guest post...

When I started my career 25 years ago I entered a market with no internet. E-mail was just beginning. I mainly worked for advertising agencies and book publishers creating traditional finished art. I illustrated painting with a brush and airbrush on cardboard that needed to be peeled off the cardboard back and then wrapped to a scanner cylinder for printing. 

My clients were finding me because I advertised in design books and I would book face to face meetings with local art directors in Montreal and My art agent in New York. The illustration and design business was booming then. But I remember there were artists complaining then that things were not the same as they used to be.

Enter the Internet. Nobody saw this one coming. It was like a giant came by and kicked the creative content ant hill. 

One thing is for sure it is not a fad. It is not going away it is growing at exponential speed and evolving just as fast. Where it is going is impossible to predict but one thing is for sure it will be incredible. The Internet is like nature it will kill anything that does not adapt to its system and it will reward anything that takes advantage of its qualities.

Digital content today is still booming but how it is monetized is drastically changing. 

Example music industry artists today do not make most of their money selling content but have to tour to make a living. The content they produce helps market and increase their touring income. Music artists have been forced to change their business model because of the Internet.

Retail stores are now seeing their sales decline because of online purchases through online retailers like Amazon. Bookstores are going on the same road as the music stores went through. Album to cd, to digital download no brick and mortar store needed. Paper Book to e-book no brick and mortar store needed.

When was the last time you rented a movie at Block Busters? Netflix soaring
Day old Newspapers or to "up to the second" online news

See the pattern?

In order to adapt to the new Internet age. How did I change my business model?

When parts of my traditional business slowed down. Instead of fear about losing past success I had excitement for the future opportunities ahead. In essence I needed to become a creative entrepreneur.

I completely retooled my studio. Transferring my traditional design skills to new digital tools and applications. I researched a bunch of new online revenue streams. And licensing content was the thing that was the most intriguing to me because I could create anything I wanted whenever I chose and then upload it to websites that sell print on demand or stock or go talk to companies directly and speak to the decision makers on how my designs on their products can improve their profits.

 I would literally walk into a retail store pick up a product that had horrible looking package or art and I would contact the company find the decision maker and present my thoughts on how we could work together. And the amazing thing is finding clients this way has enabled me to create long-term business relationships.

Imagine a business model were you decide on how much you will earn. You create content whether it is an e-book, design, illustration, photography, movie, music etc and you sell a license fee for anybody that would like to use your art. Creating a large network of small revenue streams you will end up with an ocean that pays you dividends in perpetuity.

Somebody once said “there are people who complain about the wind and others who build sail boats.” 

I have made my choice.

Francesco Santalucia
Santalucia Art Inc.
gordongroup Montreal office