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 »
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 »
When I attended the University of British Columbia, I helped organize a protest against the US testing of nuclear weapons in Amchitka, a tectonically unstable Alaskan island in the Pacific Ocean close enough to the fault lines to be of concern. Our fear was an earthquake and then a tsunami could be created by the… Read More »
We posted this blog in 2010 as a commentary on the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Not much has changed in the dozen years since and the question still remains. Much has been said this year about the “Chinese” athletes from North America, and the Canadian bobsledder who won gold for the U.S. and many others.The blog… Read More »
As Super Bowls, Stanley Cups and other championships roll around, it is interesting to see so many people wearing the jerseys or replicant jerseys of their favourite teams and players. It is a new thing. Even putting names on the backs of jerseys is a relatively new thing and not all teams even add them.… Read More »
One of the broadcast laws in Venezuela, back in the day, meant all commercials had to be shot using local Venezuelan talent. One of our clients, Revlon, was a stickler for having their commercials look as exactly like their worldwide creative as possible. Nevertheless, these had to be re-shot locally which could be quite a challenge… Read More »
Quite often we see “one off,” “stand alone,” “one shot” ads. These ads are designed for a single purpose – an event, a special offer, a single purpose. But they really miss the boat. Any advertising for a brand or product needs to be part of a continuing dialogue with your target consumers. It advances… Read More »
I was driving along on a city street in Toronto in my car, speaking, hands free, to a friend in California. As we were talking an ancient Ford Model T pulled right in front of me. The Model T was in amazing condition and it toodled along in front of me as we pulled up to… Read More »
On October 17, 2018, the Canadian government legalized cannabis. The federal government left it up to the provinces to figure out distribution but it seems like no one really did the marketing calculations right. In Ontario, for example, orders are going unfilled despite a move to throttle demand by limiting distribution until next April. The… Read More »