There has been some recent controversy about whether the Canadian government got their money’s worth when they spent an estimated $56,000 to have Finance Minister Jim Flaherty stamp the final Canadian penny produced for circulation. It was staged as a publicity stunt in May at the Royal Canadian mint in Winnipeg with accompanying press conference.… Read More »
There were established rules that limited the use of well known persons in advertising to children in Canada. Then our client, General Mills, let us know they had signed a deal to launch a cereal, Pro*Stars in 1983, that would feature Wayne Gretzky, the Great One, on the package. It was the brainchild of Mike… Read More »
Toronto should offer thanks, maybe a statue, to the one man who has made this city into the world class city it has become. When I was a kid, Toronto was a weak number two city in Canada. Montreal was the most important city with Vancouver a distant number three. Head offices were in Montreal. Everyone… Read More »
Names are funny things. They are the nouns of our lives. They create expectations and label us. They become our brands. We are often asked why we named our company Calexis and what it means. The truth is, we made it up. Our business is creativity. We create brand imagery and names for our clients,… Read More »
Human beings have an obsession for naming things. This is not surprising since it is the basis of all society, all language and all communications. We name ourselves first. We grow up knowing our labels and very few of us change those labels. This is us adding our own version of metatags with each choice… Read More »
Do you get irritated by the TV news anchors always throwing in extra adjectives to sensationalize their news stories. Every story must be “astounding,” “gripping,” or “revealing.” It is a relatively recent phenomenon. The anchors do it to make the stories seem more important and more immediate for their viewers. Just a little spin to… Read More »
There was more to Haida Gwaii than the ruins of the Haida villages like SGang Gwaay. We also visited Tanu (T’aanuu llnagaay) the burial place of well known Haida artist, Bill Reid. We also visited Skedans (Koona Llnaagay which means “Village at the Edge” – note the word for village is sometime written llanagaay, llnagaay, llnaagay because Haida is essentially an… Read More »
In the mid-1970s, my parents arranged for a condo in Florida when I was living in New York. We had a family summer vacation, joined by my brother-in-law and sister and their small two girls, aged 5 and 6. One day we were going to go to dinner with some people and had an hour… Read More »
When you watch a football game, you see officials watching the runners being tackled or run out of bounds. These officials then run out, grab the ball and place it on the field when they estimate it was advanced to. It is a field of 100 (US) or 110 (Canadian) yards, and the placement is… Read More »
My grandmother would be more than 125 years old today. She was born in a country that didn’t exist when she was born. Now it is called Belarus. English was her third or fourth language. I don’t know if she spoke any of them well, but she got her message across. She died before smartphones were… Read More »