Sometimes good things come in twos, and with the hire of two senior marketing communications practitioners, who both started at the company in early September, the Toronto office of Thornley Fallis & 76design is now bursting with senior thinking and strategic smarts!

Sean Howard joins as Vice-President of Digital Communications.  For over 15 years Sean has delivered insight and innovation to clients in the digital marketing space including Aeroplan, Aviva, Unilever, Microsoft Xbox, Pfizer and TD Bank. Most recently Sean was Strategy Director at Twist Image, where he was co-creator of the emerging strategy discipline.  Prior to that he was Director of Strategy and Innovation at Lift and he also ran his own digital media firm, Spinglobe Inc, from 2002-2007.  Sean has worked with clients and agencies on product innovation, UX and the development of digital strategies.  He also helped plan and launch TVO’s AgendaCamp where they used open innovation techniques to engage Canadians across Ontario.

Sean’s immediate responsibilities will include taking on the social media/digital communications team lead role, but he will also be driving new business in the digital space.

Deborah Knight has joined as a Senior Consultant in the traditional communications practice.  Deborah is an experienced publicity, promotions and marketing strategist with a solid track record in the arts, corporate and entrepreneurial environments.  Her category expertise includes B2C package goods, beverage and alcohol, automotive, telecoms, financial, food, retail, airline, healthcare and entertainment.  Prior to joining Thornley Fallis & 76design, Deborah ran her own firm, dkpr public relations, and she also spent two years at WestJet as National Manager, Public Relations and Communications, and three years at SkyDome Corporation as Public Relations Manager.

Deborah will step in immediately to take media relations capabilities to the next level.

[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis]

On Tuesday, June 29th, Sean Hallett of Erinwood Ford presented a 2011 Ford Mustang to an Erindale Secondary School graduate and award winner for outstanding leadership on Rogers First Local, Mississauga.

Check out the clip:

In a move reflecting the agency’s growth and commitment to client service and the seamless integration of off-line and on-line communications, Thornley Fallis Communications has added senior consumer marketing communications talent to its leadership team.

Jo Langham, ABC has more than 20 years of marketing communications experience spanning the agency, consulting and corporate environments and joins Thornley Fallis as Senior Vice-President & General Manager, Toronto.   With an award-winning reputation for planning and leading innovative, high-impact strategic communications campaigns, Jo will share responsibility for the overall performance and strategic direction of the agency, provide senior client counsel and manage professional development for Toronto staff.

“Thornley Fallis & 76design has established an excellent reputation built on our commitment to provide smart thinking, deliver creative solutions, achieve spectacular results, and exceed our
clients’ expectations. The company has the ability to do this because we have assembled an exceptional team of senior counsellors, strategists, project leaders, designers and developers with a wealth of communications expertise and experience,” said Joseph Thornley, Chairman & CEO of Thornley Fallis Communications Inc.   “In hiring Jo we reiterate our commitment to providing truly integrated communications solutions to our clients.”

Prior to joining Thornley Fallis Jo spent the last four years with a leading independent communications company where she managed the consumer marketing practice and was a member of the senior leadership team. She has experience in a broad range of industries including food & beverage, health & wellness, financial, leisure, beauty and energy and has worked with a variety of internationally recognized brands including Coca-Cola, CIBC VISA, Kellogg Canada, International Schizophrenia Foundation, Toronto Hydro and Unilever.

Jo is an accredited member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), serves on the Accreditation Council of the IABC and is Secretary to the Board of Central Eglinton Children’s Centre.

Thornley Fallis is an innovative, full-service public relations, communications and marketing agency that helps organizations reach, connect with, and build and sustain positive relationships with their communities through the integrated use of on-line and off-line communications tactics.

76design is a creative services and web development agency that conceptualizes, designs and develops brands, identities, print materials, website applications, videos, widgets and tools that enable organizations to reach, connect with and create value for their communities.

[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis]

On Friday, June 18^th, Doug Heeney of Campbell Ford demonstrated SYNC on A-Channel with Kurt Stoodley.

Check out the clip:

A-Channel – SYNC – Campbell Ford – June 19, 2010

[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis]

On Saturday May 29th, Dupuis Ford Lincoln’s Mutang Poker Run raised $101,666 for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation.

Check out this previous Capital PR post about the event.

On Saturday, June 5^th, Michel Dupuis along with other organizers of the Mustang Poker Run appeared on A-Channel to discuss their great fundraising success.

Check out the clip:
A-Channel Weekend – Dupuis Ford Mustang Poker Run

In an attempt to reduce the cost of its annual report, The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) engaged 76design and Thornley Fallis for our unique concept of a paperless report. Highlighting achievements and documenting successes,  World Class Care (TOH’s 2008-2009 Annual Report) contains a special feature allowing readers to create their own versions of the report including only the sections and stories appealing to them.

For some, those stories include the 6808 hospital births, the woman who was paying it forward by donating her kidney to a stranger because her own husband was receiving one from an anonymous donor in Ottawa – who had selflessly stepped forward to transplant hope, or the CF soldier, blown to bits in Afghanistan after coming into contact with a land mine. He died. Twice. The second time he was resuscitated during his evacuation flight. He arrived at TOH doped up on morphine. Months of therapy and compassionate care in the Rehabilitation Centre got him back on his feet- running in fact – he recently took part in The Olympic Torch Relay Race, with a new ‘bionic’ leg.

Allow me to cast the awards spotlight on other members of our talented team, who took those stories and turned them into an attention grabbing report: writer Bradley Moseley-Williams, who’s never met an adjective he can’t love, web developers and code masters- Brett Tackaberry and Steve Lounsbury, Mr. Shaun Search Engine Optimization Scanlon, ‘video is the new media’ Ryan Knuth, Resource and Account Manager Laura Mindorff, video killed the radio star LeeEllen Carroll, and top 40 under 50 SVP and GM Keelan Green.

A very special thanks to TOH’s CEO Jack Kitts and VP Nic Ruszkowski for renewing their investment in TF and 76 by inviting us back to partner on their next online annual report.

Here’s to more success stories for The Ottawa Hospital, Thornley Fallis and 76design, our peers at IABC and everyone in our communications community.

[Ford is a client of Thornley Fallis]

On Friday, May 7^th, Dave Rossy of Lincoln Heights Ford Lincoln demonstrated Ford’s Active Park Assist Technology on A Channel Morning with Co-host Angie Poirier.

Check out the clip.

Disclosure: Lockheed Martin is a Thornley Fallis client and I manage the account.

Yesterday, I moderated a news conference at the Canada Aviation Museum at which Tony Frese, Lockheed Martin program manager for the Canadian CC-130J project, announced the Canada In-Service Support Team for the CC-130J fleet and $1.5 billion Industrial Regional Benefits confirmed to date under the CC-130J program, including $307 million for companies in Ontario.  News Release

The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, then welcomed the news that Lockheed Martin is providing in-service support contracts to businesses across Canada and that the company has confirmed to date $1.5 billion in Industrial Regional Benefit projects under the CC-130J program, including $307 million for companies in Ontario. News Release

Keelan Green of Thornley Fallis

Tony Clement, Minister of Industry

Tony Frese of Lockheed Martin

L to R: Tony Frese, Keelan Green, David Schellenberg of Cascade Aerospace, Minister Tony Clement

I am pleased to announce the launch of Thornley Fallis & 76design’s new online presence.

Our new websites, conceptualized, designed and developed by our team of creative masterminds and technology all-stars, exemplifies our capacity to push the limits of innovation in the world of social media and digital marketing.

Thornley Fallis & 76design is made up of individuals with fun, smart and professional personalities; personalities that have all contributed to the success of marketing & communications projects. To fully demonstrate the range of personalities, talent and intelligence our team has to offer, we’ve done something a little outside the box. Something very brave… or maybe something very stupid – we’ll let you know

We’ve created a live LifeStream for every one of our employees. This is more than just a standard funny profile picture and biography. It is an aggregate of their work and online profile, intended to paint a picture of who they are, what they do, what they think and what they are interested in.

To explore the diverse and unique characters at Thornley Fallis and jokers at 76design, take a look through our people profiles and find out who you could be working with on your next project.

Not only is our team exceptionally talented (and good-looking), we are experienced & passionate about the work we do. While adventuring through our People pages, zoom over to the Work & Services sections to see what Thornley Fallis & 76design has to offer.

My colleagues and I hope you enjoy perusing through our new sites.

Oh and one more thing… if you like what you see, don’t hesitate to call us, we’d love to hear from you!

Readers can consider this a blog post by popular demand. The blogosphere and twitterscene (a word I hope I just coined) are small places; look around and you’ll see a familiar handle.

Futurecasting—something I enjoy as a mild hobby—is a career byproduct. Most PR counsellors practice it at some level. As a lazy blogger (I want to, but I find I don’t make time for it) I have been encouraged to blog more, worry about it less, and go for broke.

This, therefore, is broke. This is what I am following, noticing, observing and paying attention to across various media, scenes, sites and places:

The world’s greatest ponzi scheme is unfolding; Bernard Madoff (which google) is in jail and the legal entities of the United States and Elsewhere are now eyeing his family’s assets with narrowing eyes and a sceptical expression. In a time when many people are questioning how oversight bodies (SEC et al) failed to catch a theft of such magnificent proportion it behooves government agencies to now—perhaps “at last”—step in and show that they are up to the job at hand. That means that la famille Madoff can expect a large team of forensic accountants to exhume every cheque, chit, IOU and other financial instrument going back to who-knows-when and—I hereby predict—confiscate anything that isn’t nailed down. (Even the family piano, according to one report, is under threat of immediate confiscation.) Taking possession of Mrs Madoff’s piano will not nullify her husband’s crimes, but it looks good (the optics of it, if you will) for a public eager to see justice served no matter how late or cold.

Live cheaper to live better? When times get tough people turn to kith and kin for solace and comfort. What is more comforting than a home-cooked meal? A pleasant stroll through a local bookstore conglomerate reveals the new reality of kitchen fun: Cookbooks promoting casserole cooking, slow cooking (see: Futurecasting) and all manner of delectable meals on the cheap are currently in vogue. The very notion of “cooking” is now back in vogue after a long-ish hiatus as a pleasant pass time for busy people. Cooking—the dreary need to prepare meals for yourself or family—was a basic fact of life through much of history. In the latter end of the 20th century, however, cooking—the bane of housewives for eons—morphed into a soci0-economic totem of the good life. Cooking became an activity for couples to share as they entertained on weekends with artfully turned out meals paired with the proper wines, artisan cheeses and unique appetizers. By the turn of the century (that is, 1999 into 2000) fast food, take-out, home delivery, personal chefs and “assembled meals” had taken precedence at the family table and cooking was firmly established as a hobby.

Luxury that shows is no longer desirable. Famous brands (Royal Daulton, Waterford Crystal, Wedgwood) that reigned for the longest possible time in the finest homes and dining rooms are facing the sad fact that they are in trouble. Public Luxury—which used to something most people aspired to—is now unfashionable. While it is possible to hide your luxury at home (you can drink beer in a Waterford goblet if you draw the curtains) it is impossible to hide your luxury in public. Famous automobile marques (Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Bentley and so forth) will sit longer on the showroom floor while a careful public reconsiders its values. Marketing luxury in an economic storm requires a deft touch; the focus needs to change to “value” and “craftsmanship” and there can be no references to ego-features (custom stitching on leather seats, say, or engines with 8 more cylinders than are strictly required) as in the good old days of joyful and exuberant conspicuous consumption.

This blog is dedicated to Jason Ashton.