Launched in April 2010, the handbook provides users with a searchable and easy-to-navigate platform as well as the option to build a customized handbook that only contains information they are interested in.

The Handbook is intended to help users become better-informed and more confident consumers. It offers information on a wide range of topics such as online shopping, contracts, housing and home renovations, identity theft, collection agencies, and much more, to help users build their buying skills.

Along with consumer tips, the Handbook includes a directory of government and non-government contacts useful to consumers.

The Handbook was created and is updated by the Consumer Measures Committee. This Committee is a joint federal/provincial/territorial committee which provides a forum for national cooperation to improve the marketplace for Canadian consumers, through the harmonization of laws, regulations and practices and through actions to raise public awareness.

Thornley Fallis

IT GRINDS FRESH BEANS FOR EVERY CUP!!!

So far the new machine (we currently have one from another company) is getting rave reviews. Here are a few of the comments we received when we asked our team in Ottawa what they thought:

• Best thing since sliced bread.
• It is the ray of sunshine that I look forward too while on the long bus ride.
• It’s like a triple rainbow.
• I selected “Max Buzz” 12 oz feature and I just stopped vibrating. My teeth—which are still humming—feel like I’ve been chewing coffee grounds most of the morning.
• I think we could use the starbucks machine as a hiring perk. It’s that good.
• It’s uber fantastic, and you know I mean business with a word like uber!

 Looks likew we’ll be keeping it and looking at getting one for our Toronto office.

“When you join a company in an economic downturn, you have the opportunity to cower or to stand out. Keelan Green stood out from the beginning and he continues to stand out,” said Joseph Thornley, CEO of Thornley Fallis & 76design. “Keelan has always demonstrated a will to succeed. He demonstrates the truth that that good enough isn’t good enough. Work has to be great to be worth doing. Clients love him. And team members gravitate to him. Over the past two years, he demonstrated his leadership by bringing our Ottawa office through the recession, not only surviving but growing. So, I’m looking forward to working alongside him as he takes responsibility for the entire company.  I’m sure even greater success lies ahead for Keelan and Thornley Fallis & 76design.”

This announcement comes in the wake of several new hires at Thornley Fallis & 76design over the past few months, including Jo Langham, Senior Vice-President & General Manager of the Toronto office; Pierre Killeen, Vice-President, Public Engagement; Laurence Smink, Creative Director; Carrie Croft, Consultant; Eric Portelance, Consultant; Laura Townson, Account Manager; Brent Charbonneau, Senior Web Developer; Frank Carr, Senior Web Developer; and Samantha Hartley, Account Coordinator.

“This is of course a great and very exciting opportunity for me personally,” said Keelan Green. “But, I think what is most exciting is where our firm is right now and the tremendous opportunities I see for us in the months and years ahead.  While the past 18 months was a difficult period for our industry, our agency included, we have come through it with several new, high-profile client relationships, a strengthened team, and an improved and expanded our service offering. Thornley Fallis & 76design is definitely well-positioned to continue providing outstanding service to our existing clients and to take advance of the growing number of new opportunities we are seeing in the market.”

About Keelan Green
Keelan Green joined Thornley Fallis & 76design from the federal government 8 years ago as a Consultant. Since 2002, he held a series of progressively more senior roles until becoming General Manager of the firm’s Ottawa office in January 2007.  Keelan leads many of the firm’s top accounts, including Lockheed Martin, Ford, Enstream, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), a variety of Government of Canada organizations and the City of Ottawa. In 2008, Keelan led the firm’s Ottawa office to the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce Business Achievement Award for Professional Services Firm of the Year and was selected as one of Ottawa’s “Top 40 Under 40” by the Ottawa Business Journal. He serves on several volunteer boards and committees, including the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom, the Salvation Army Ottawa Advisory Board and he is President of the Canadian Public Relations Society Ottawa/Gatineau Chapter. Born and raised in Ottawa, Keelan attended Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia where he received a Bachelors’ degree in Business Administration. Keelan is an avid golfer at Rivermead Golf Club and plays on two rec league hockey teams. He lives in downtown Ottawa with wife Laura and son Peyton.

About Thornley Fallis & 76design
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, widgets and tools that enable organizations to reach, connect with and create value for their communities.

Contacts:

Jo Langham
416-515-7517 ext. 340,  langham@thornleyfallis.com

LeeEllen Carroll
613-231-3355 ext. 231, carroll@thornleyfallis.com

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:

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.

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

Check out the job postings:

Marketing Manager

Public Relations Manager

Pierre Killeen, LL.B, LL.L. – Vice-President, Public Engagement
Pierre is a leader and innovator in the field of online public engagement. Trained as a lawyer and fluently bilingual, Pierre has more than ten years of business experience with online communities, public consultations and crowd-sourcing. Since 2006, he has been conducting large-scale online public consultations for cities, public agencies and government departments across Canada. Pierre joins Thornley Fallis from Nanos Research, where he co-created and then led the development, sales and marketing of Nanos’ online consultation service to a range of clients, including the City of Ottawa, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, Industry Canada, the City of Edmonton and Waterfront Toronto.  Prior to his time at Nanos, Pierre served as the Vice-President of Business Development at Jobshark.com (now jobserve.com). From 2000 to 2004, he helped ePALS Classroom Exchange (epals.com) become the world’s largest K-12 online education community. Before that he was the Government Relations Officer for the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.

Carrie Croft, Consultant
Carrie is an experienced communications, media relations and event management professional. She joins Thornley Fallis following her role as Supervisor of Operations Communications for the Vancouver Organizing Committee at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Carrie’s other professional experience includes Regional Event Director for the Mitsubishi City Chase and Campus Chase, Press Manager for the FIL Veissmann Luge World Cup, Media Services Manager for the IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, and Consultant with Interplay Creative Media.  Carrie volunteers her time for numerous organizations and charity events, including the 2011 Canada Games, The Hill Fights Hunger, Capital Fashion Week, the Ontario Summer Games, the FIFA U20 World Cup, and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Ottawa Chapter, where she has been instrumental in the organization and execution of the annual awards gala. She was a 2009 YMCA Women of Distinction nominee.

Samantha Hartley, Account Coordinator
Samantha joins us from the Public Relations program at Algonquin College. She did her co-op placement with us this winter and now we have hired her on full-time. A social media enthusiast, Sam maintains a personal blog. She also enjoys writing about communication practices, social media, health and lifestyle, and has had articles appear in several local print publications and online news sources.

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 order to reinvigorate and revitalize downtown Ottawa businesses hit hard by the recession and the bus strike, Thornley Fallis and 76design  conceived, developed and executed the Picture it Downtown campaign for The City of Ottawa, where residents were encouraged to go downtown, snap a photo and share it online.

Point, shoot, share – a simple concept to get Ottawa excited about all it has to offer. The “Picture It Downtown” concept we developed served to visually promote downtown Ottawa as a whole, but also the eight specific areas being promoted:  Byward Market, Downtown Rideau, Sparks Street, Bank Street, The Glebe, Chinatown, Preston Street (Little Italy) and Wellington-West Village.

Residents could participate in the campaign contest to win daily ($50), weekly ($250) and grand ($500 to $1200) prizes by taking pictures of downtown activities and uploading them to the campaign website.

The campaign included a media launch event involving the Mayor, a website with a list of downtown activites, a description, videos and photos of each area, contest rules and regulations, a photo gallery for people to submit and view photos, and YouTube videos, featuring all that’s cool in several neighbourhoods, print, radio, online and transit advertising, weekly news releases and ongoing online outreach using other social media tools including Twitter and Flickr.

Thousands of people participated and competed for prizing provided by local businesses.

The campaign was to remind Ottawans of all the diverse experiences and excitement downtown Ottawa has to offer, and entice them to visit downtown — ultimately spending money while engaging in the various activities highlighted in the eight main areas being promoted.

For the City of Ottawa, running a marketing campaign with a heavy online and interactive component was not only a smart business and communications decision, but its creativity generated a lot of buzz within Ottawa and got people sharing ideas and photos of great things to do and see in the city.

The fall 2009 campaign resulted in over ten thousand unique visits to the campaign website, more than 1300 entries (photos uploaded to the website), significant earned media in targeted outlets, photo and video assets for future use by the City, and a general buzz across the City about the creativity of the campaign, particularly by government.

Picture it downtown would not have been possible without our lead technologist Brett Tackaberry, senior web developer Steve Lounsbury, our superb designer Steve St. Pierre, the ad campaign led by Laura Mindorff, the videos by Ryan Knuth, writer and producer LeeEllen Carroll and our SEO expert Shaun Scanlon. Special thanks to our GM Keelan Green, who has a knack for assembling the best teams to deliver outstanding results.

Thank you IABC for the recognition. It’s nice to bask in the spotlight… and great to share successes. As I used to say in my former journalistic career, you’re only as good as your last story. So that means back to work. Right now.