News

Let’s face it, we all love a great story, which is why we flock to buy books, watch movies, and attend theatre. We love to hear stories of great personal achievements, companies, and brands. Storytelling is perhaps the oldest form of communication and cultural identification. The same cornerstones of a brilliant story are found in brilliant design, which is why design as a creative process is ideally suited to link brand stories in a unifying way. Chris Bedford will explore how organizations can use design thinking to uncover their story and learn how to tell it in a compelling manner through all consumer touch points.

Conference details: http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/conference/europe08/conference.htm

 

Father Time, a figure usually associated with ushering out the old year, is given a new job in this year’s First Calgary Savings RSP advertising campaign and his new job is aging people. TV, radio, print, online banner ads, in-branch posters, and direct mail all poke fun at the common signs of aging, like getting wrinkles or losing hair.

Karo was featured in a recent “Cool Spaces” segment on City TV. Karo Environments Director, Keith Moe, was the perfect choice to take City TV on an office tour—after all, he designed the office space when Karo moved into the building in 2005.

The people of Karo Group have come together to make a difference in the lives of children in developing countries. We have participated in the “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) initiative to provide school-age children with laptop computers.

This holiday season Karo decided to bring a little magic to children who will be in the hospital during the Christmas season.

This holiday season Karo once again experienced the thrill of giving—2,000+ cans of food to the Calgary Food Bank. Staff members in the Calgary office joined forces to build an 8-foot Christmas tree out of carefully stacked cans

The merit of running ads for needy causes has never been questioned. But when Calgary-based Homefront (a support agency for those affected by domestic violence), chose to run an outdoor campaign, they knew they were courting controversy.

Freshwater fishing licences have long been sold in paper format from outdoor shops. The BC Ministry of Environment, Fish & Wildlife decided it was time to make these licences more accessible. Karo was asked to develop a system that allowed fishing enthusiasts to buy their licences online.

Karo devised a user-friendly, simple system where a licence could be ordered, paid for and printed from the user’s personal computer. The system provides a digital copy of the licence to avoid having to repurchase a lost licence. Once the angler’s account is set up, licence renewals are quick and easy and the angler can also add family members under their account. As well, the angler’s personal info can be easily accessed by a ranger via a QR barcode that is generated electronically when the licence is issued. The long-term benefits for the client entail an ability to learn more about angler preferences (now that this information is gathered electronically) and an increased impact on fishing tourism in BC.

With the “soft launch” of the web site at the start of September 2007, and without much media coverage surrounding the system, the numbers were surprising–over 1,000 anglers registered and over $11,000 of purchases took place by the end of September. Most anglers appeared to be from outside BC. Many European purchases took place from as far away as Romania and Rome.

 

 

In an interview on CBC, prior to the unveiling of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Mascots, Karo’s Director of Customer Experience Strategy, Anson Lee, suggested that a good mascot ought to pass the “what exactly is that?” test and, in an uncomplicated way, reflect the kind of place the games are being held.

Karo Group has just added five new awards to its stable of excellence. We entered our Horse Racing Alberta campaign into the Canadian Agricultural Marketing Awards that took place in mid-November, 2007.

Karo was in competition with top agencies including Ad Farm and BBDO, the latter of which entered its Milk Campaign, well known across Canada. We came away with an Excellence in Television Series and Merits in Billboard Single, Billboard Series and Product Sales–Direct Marketing/Direct Response.

Leading these other wins was  our “Best in Show” for the Consumer Direct Category. This victory is a tribute to the Karo tradition of design excellence that arises from creative liberty, market experience and energetic teamwork.