Client

EngageMe

Period

2006 – Present

Client Bio

Startup internet venture.

Personal History

This project was slowly evolved during countless brainstorming sessions on how to fix the inaccurate and problematic tracking of user surfing patterns that companies use now-a-days to dictate a user’s online interests. Most of you can probably recognize the issues everyone faces with examples of your own. For myself it was the fact that many companies were tracking my movements across the internet and defining me incorrectly on very narrow terms, and one day it culminated frustratingly on Amazon where I was served up an offer for yet another children’s book just because I bought one for my niece over one year earlier. For my business partner it was the fact that Google kept returning billions of results on such a wide array of topics because they feel that giving you everything is what you deserve but not necessarily what you really wanted.

Keyword advertising had just taken off and Google was not yet the beast it is today. Other search engines were trying to radically change the direction of what search meant and delivered but unfortunately the simple one page of ten results that Google put out in a couple of micro seconds seemed to gain popularity too fast for other companies to challenge. I would bet that now-a-days, since our connections are generally much faster, that what has seemingly become Google’s trademark results would be drastically better.

So how do you make them better? I would argue the answer is to know and understand the user’s interests better and to deliver information that is skewed towards those interests. But to do this you would have to ask the user about themselves and behave honestly and track them across the web. You would also have to make sure that you did not take in any ‘personally identifiable information’ as that isn’t a trustworthy action.

This is what EngageMe intends to be: open, honest and accurate.

Objective

To create a proof of concept for an interest profile toolset using open source tools (LAMP) based on an AJAX model. EngageMe enables a user-centric profile ownership model that leverages non-personally identifiable information (PII) for security reasons and fast adoption and interoperability with emerging open profile standards.

Noteworthy

An interest taxonomy was developed with over 700k+ interests. A bookmark analyzer allows users to create an initial profile that can then be shared across social networks. Advertisers using EngageMe can target users based on their interests rather than tracking.

Vendor

Thirst for EngageMe

Client

Perform Consulting

Period

1995

Client Bio

An international firm comprising industry experts who specialized in finacial services and public utilities offering among other services; performance measurement, benchmarking and restructuring.

Objective

To capture business share from other major consulting firms with a bold and modern approach to advertising.

Noteworthy

Because of the size of this company’s audience, different tactics were taken to advertise services that were offered. Each piece of direct marketing or advertising was strong and confident. In every case making contact and receiving replies was the priority. This campaign was very successful, it created a marked increase (it actually quadrupled) in customer feedback and acknowledgement of the comapany’s variety of services.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

MH Media Monitoring

Period

1996

Client Bio

A pision of Maclean Hunter, (now Rogers) MH Media Monitoring was the largest media monitoring and distribution service in Canada.

Personal History

Sometimes it is obvious that companies could use some help, and you know that no matter what you do you can improve their image substantially. This is one project that I relished because I knew that I could help them, fit within their budget and improve their image.

Objective

To extend the reach of their new electronic monitoring service on a photocopying budget.

Noteworthy

Several direct mail campaigns were designed at a very low cost. Most of the pieces were fold-out, accordian-style brochures. For the first time humour was used to announce what would otherwise have been fairly dry information.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

Wright Technology

Period

1996

Client Bio

A software technology company that makes high-end image editing solutions for prepress.

Personal History

These designs came about because we were pushed by the client to shock. Normally we would never have gone this far but the client thought that they were so far ahead of the rest of the industry technically that they could see themselves as untouchable. Admittedly their imaging software was incredible for that time.

Objective

To advertise through a blitz campaign, their new high speed image editing software, “Wright Design”.

Noteworthy

A series of four ads that coincided with an industry show in Las Vegas. The ads were almost always controversial because of their boldness. The shock value of these ads in a staid industry really set this company apart. The feedback and recognition during this campaign was extremely high and sales of their software increased substantially. The following year the company was bought.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

Canadian Hospitality Foundation

Period

1997

Client Bio

Industry-driven and supported scholarship program for the hospitality sector.

Objective

To introduce the scholarship program to students across Canada.

Noteworthy

This charitable program had very little money to spend, but they still wanted maximum impact. Thirst created several sizes and designs of 2-colour posters using the same graphic language.

Vendor

Thirst

Client

Family Channel

Period

1995 – 1997

Client Bio

A television channel geared towards families and their children. They are now part of the Astral Communications company.

Personal History

This was an exciting client to work for. The material was always new and the tasks were varied. But I think the best of all, were the personal working relationships that I had with their staff. They were some of the kindest souls I had ever worked with and most of them were learning and growing with their jobs which made it possible to experiment and have some fun.

Objective

Family Channel was in it’s infancy and needed to expand their viewership. They were constantly offering new shows and needed to showcase them. They needed to create awareness among the Canadian population for new programming and specific time slots and create visual identities for programming time slots.

Noteworthy

Most of the work was done in black and white but it still had to have a wholesome attitude and a colourful personality. Over the 3+ years Thirst worked very closely with the marketing group to create many print advertisements. We also developed some of their early on air logos, which had to be colourful, and fit within the framework of Family Channel’s overall branding..

Vendor

Thirst

Client

Sybase

Period

1993

Client Bio

Sybase focusses on the integration, management, and delivery of applications, content and data.

Personal History

All pieces of this campaign were extremely high resolution. It is of interest to note that back in 1993 image manipulation was done on very early versions of Adobe Photoshop using the equivilent of x286 computers… it took over a week just to detail their logo into the plug of the direct mail ad below. Almost all of the pieces made for Sybase took as long and I never thought they would. Lesson learned, price your work accordingly.

Objective

The Launch of Sybase Canada needed some highly visible pieces. They needed this campaign (before the ‘Internet’ was so aptly named), to extend their corporate presence into the Canadian market.

Noteworthy

A series of highly visual advertisements were created to show how easily Sybase systems could be integrated. At year’s end, feedback from this campaign tripled from the previous year.

Vendor

Thirst