45 full-time Colour employees across Atlantic Canada also manage mutually supportive relationships, creating marketing and communication programs for clients like Nova Scotia Tourism, Nova Scotia Community College, Stewart McKelvey, Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, Medavie Blue Cross and Junior Achievement, as well as numerous public sector clients.
Extreme Group
Who are you? What do you stand for?
In 2010 Extreme Group stops being an advertising agency. It simply is not enough to continue with the same old model in this ever changing environment. We still do ads. Great ones at that, but we apply our experience and thinking to every way that brands and consumers interact. In fact, we are experts in the interaction between brands and consumers.
Skeptical? Look at our work.
We’re a 45-person agency headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia with 14 people in a Toronto satellite office. So who says it can’t be done here?
We’re doing it – and pretty damn well too.
We do work that makes a difference for brands and consumers. If that is sales, relationships or changing how people behave, we can do that. Our work has seen fewer people smoking and getting injured on the job and has also seen more HD television in people’s homes and more beer in their fridges.
All because we helped our clients connect to the consumers of their message and products.
We are taking back the word interactive from the digital guys. Interactive means ‘to interact’ not ‘to do something online.’ The ultimate interaction is an actual conversation between two people. Our work ignites those conversations regardless of the tools or media. So bring it on ‘interactive’ shops, we’ll show you what it really means.
We will make a difference. There is a quote on my wall that is attributed to an unknown (to me anyway) friend of Alex Bogusky, chief creative officer at Crispin Porter + Bogusky. I take it to heart every day. “It astounds me how people are afraid of so many things, but mediocrity never seems to be one of them.” Mediocrity is easy to achieve. We will not accept it.
With that in mind, we are not going to apologize for trying to be great every day. Sometimes that is what is expected from Atlantic Canadians… sorry for trying to excel… so sorry for being noticed. Instead, we’re sorry if you’re not striving for greatness too and immensely proud if you are. It is way more fun reaching for the top than it is making fun of or pulling down those who are changing things.
What would you consider to be your agency’s ‘portfolio’ piece? What is your agency most known for?
As the non-conformists we are, we will not name a signature campaign but a signature area of practice – social marketing. Social marketing is the art of changing behavior and is usually used to further social causes like healthy active living, cancer screening or even more walking.
Our best and most recognized work in this area is in two sectors – our anti-smoking campaign called “Great Reasons to Smoke” for the Nova Scotia Department of Health Protection and Promotion – and our workplace injury prevention work for The Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia, The Workplace Health, Safety and Compensation Commission of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Prince Edward Island Workers’ Compensation Board.
The workplace injury prevention work has focused on unforeseen consequences of workplace injuries and most recently a strong call to action to take care of seemingly insignificant details like a bucket left on a floor, a bent rung on a ladder and most graphically, a nail protruding from a pallet. This campaign was recognized with Bronze Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, advertising’s foremost award show.
More importantly those campaigns have seen Nova Scotia go from worst to best in smoking rates in Canada and workplace injury awareness increase in the three provinces running the injury prevention campaigns.
Idea Factory
Who we are:
Born October 29, 2001. The Idea Factory (www.ifactory.ca) has grown to a full-service marketing, communications and interactive agency with 23 talented folks that search for the smart and brave solutions to brands day in and day out. Based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, we began with a vision to build a world-class agency right here at the edge of the North Atlantic. And with 35% of our revenue now coming from outside the province, we are proving you can live where your heart is but let your creative mind do work anywhere on the planet.
