New marketing campaigns announced

See:

http://www.strategyonline.ca/articles/m ... couts.html

and

http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news ... 70624_7424

Interesting. So what happens if a youth ends up joining a Group that doesn't go camping? (And we all know they exist)

I'm also interested in knowing how a Newfoundland-based PR company won a five-year contract.

I saw the preliminary images in late July and a bunch of the finished ones a couple of weeks ago. I think they are outstanding messages but how well they'll do in recruiting money for the organization...well, I'm not sure about that.

Garth

Next week, I'll be recording a webinar that provides an overview of our new brand, how we arrived at this point, and what the future plans are. Our strategy will become clearer as we introduce it in the field -- we're just getting started, and it will take time.

Over the next month, we'll launch an online brand centre, which will offer practical tools for our members to use.

A supply of new posters have been shipped to every Council in the country. They will be great in schools, community centres, and other public places.

Thousands of flyers for schools have been designed and printed.

The campaign featured in the news stories is about receruitment. However, this fall, we'll be unveiling a campaign aimed at opinion leaders in Canada -- the goal will be to get Scouts back on the radar.

We considered five firms to help us build a brand strategy, most of which were in Toronto. But after a thorough assessment of each company, Target clearly won out -- the firm has proven experience in revitalizing and respositioning brands. The company also donated significant time and resources to the project. Feel free to check them out at www.targetmarketing.ca.

Kids in Scouts have fun adventures, discovering new things and experiences they wouldn’t discover elsewhere.

Along the way, these young people develop into capable, confident and well-rounded individuals, better prepared for success in the world.

Scouts is the start of something great.

It starts with Scouts!

To Robert's point, we have to fix our program quality issues. If we don't deliver what we promise, then our retention rates will continue to be embarrassing.

We're going to focus a lot of energy on this issue, but there's no silver bullet. Focusing on the Scout method, implementing our program quality awards, reinventing servicing, and truly redirecting resources to better support our volunteers are all important pieces, but there are more.

More to come.


Steve

Fantastic to see this new campaign rolling out. I do have to question the ability for a single campaign to be very effective over a five year period. But we wont know until we have a chance to see everything!

Newfoundland or Ontario... as long as we're seeing the best work possible in the market and it is of course Canadian, so be it!

While on the Target website, I noticed they created the advertisements for Newfoundland & Labrador Tourism. I remember those ad's very well and if they do as good a job on the Scouting ones... we are in business! (Not literally but that may be appropriate as well...)

As both a Marketer and a leader I have to say I love the new campaign but, again I feel that the execution to the general membership was really lacking. For example, as for most agencies I would expect that there would be rules and regulations on how to use the new brand. I had to do a lot of hunting to find the “Style Guide” on the scouts.ca website.
This “Style Guide” is a great resource for the leadership teams to use as they build ads for their local campaigns for example school handouts, community papers, or church bulletin boards. But, if you have no formal training on how to use a style guide it would be very confusing. For example if I said to most leaders make sure you only Pantone 185U most people could not tell you what a Pantone or a PMS even is. The new stitched looking font is cool but there is no way to download it. I know we are all volunteers but, if we are going to look professional with this new campaign we must have the tools to act on this professionalism.

WOW ask and you shall receive!
This just came out!

I found the style guide for download. You found the font?

Garth

For the benefit of others, here is a link to the Scouts Canada Style Guide.

The Bliss font is the property of Jeremy Tankard. It can be purchased here.
There may be an open-source variant called Bliss 2 but I haven't found any reliable download site yet. Pretty much any sans serif font is close enough for internal publication.

If the fonts are proprietary then National should have bought a license and made them available for download. We shouldn't have to pay for fonts in order to make our materials look proper according to the style guide. Also, 'close enough' isn't a good practice to follow. There's a reason why there's a style guide. If I use something that I think is close enough then the next person might do the same, etc, etc. You then get the 'copy of a copy' effect.

Garth
Alberta

If you haven't watched it yet, I strongly encourage you to view the branding webinar.

http://elearning.scouts.ca/p74055426/?l ... ode=normal

Steve and the team did a great explaining things. The one problem...this should be downloadable so I can present it at area or group committee meetings.

Garth
Alberta

Thanks Garth, fantastic resource. I don't think I would have come across this if you hadn't brought it up.

The video looks to answer some of my questions about some of the... gaps.. the new branding has. Summary, those concerns have already been taken into consideration, although a few not necessarily in the time frame I would have picked.

I think it's important that the branding, its usage, its benefits and what's to come is known by as many volunteers as possible. I encourage us to share this video and National to provide us with ways of sharing it. Perhaps shorter, but highly specific videos or other forms of media. 40 minutes might be just enough to get a high level understanding of the entire plan an inch deep, but a few videos 5-10 minutes long on select topics would go along way.


I don't know if it was just my rather slow internet connection, but did anyone else get syncing issues between what Steve was saying and the presentation next to it? Had to selectively seek the video every few minutes so it didn't get too crazy.

PS. Totally called the shop job on the canoe/help menu picture.

The one problem...this should be downloadable so I can present it at area or group committee meetings.

You could watch the presentation normally and record it with Camtasia (free 30 day trial). Then you would have a video file you could play offline at any time.


Allan.

Nick and all: I learned of the webinar from an e-mail I received on September 27th. It was, supposedly, sent to everyone across the country. To get them you need to make sure MMS has your e-mail address.

Allan: Thanks for the heads up about Camtasia. I'll give it a try. However, I shouldn't have to be the one to find ways to record it. National should make it downloadable.

Garth

I noticed that one of the photos used by Scouts Canada for the new advertising, "Make friends, don't add them", is also used by the Association of Bright Children of Ontario. Not a problem, I just found it interesting.


Allan.