Supporting downtown community and business

We’re big believers in the concept of sustainable business and economy achieved by supporting local. We were particularly excited to have been asked by the downtown Burlington Ontario business association to assist them in their communication and branding efforts. Being that we live and work in the downtown, as do our team within the local area, this is local putting its money where its mouth is.

For us, the approach to the communication involved taking a step back and looking at what we could do to assist in strengthening community while also supporting the exciting events and culture building ideas that the downtown core have been working on for 2013. What kind of communication and mechanisms would it take to assist the downtown community to interconnect and strengthen. How would this look and how would this speak?

We live in a fast paced, highly communicative and visually motivated world and as such the conclusion involved revamping the downtown’s approach to communicating. We focused on building a web and integrated print media platform that would visually illustrate and expose the exciting ideas and people hidden within the downtown core — both businesses and residents.

What’s here and what’s happening — now — is the boiled down emphasis of the new message. All components strive to assert this idea that the place is happening. It’s all here and if you aren’t here, you are simply missing out.

To express this, the solution involved integrating real time social media and relational blogging content in a manner that connects actual relevant information and happenings with the businesses and people downtown. The WordPress backbone allows content managers the on the fly ability to assist  businesses to express more contextually and of the moment, forwarding their ideas and events in order to leverage the website’s traffic reach to a broad audience.

The print media campaign builds on and supports the website as a brand hub. Print’s purpose is also to drive the idea of what’s here and what’s happening. Print presents snippets and teasers to get people to engage in the website and then explore their virtual businesses and the people who run these businesses. The goal is for the audience to discover all that already exists, but for a moment to see the place in a new exciting light, to dig deeper and discover that this place called Downtown Burlington is relevant and compelling.

So far, so good.

To celebrate 10 successful years, the Niagara family run winery Caroline Cellars decided they needed a fresh approach to their wine label communication. Call it a refinement or concentration of what was most important, Insite worked with the family to boil down what mattered to them to better tell their great story while representing the quality of the wine and relaxed nature of their audience.

VQA Ontario Appellation & Resource Website

In 2008 we were asked to assist the Ontario VQA in consolidating a great body of wine research and intelligence toward designing and producing a world class appellation website to represent the regulatory organization. Insite managed thousands of pages of documents and research from Brock University as well as research we gathered from around the region on soil types, historical land use and mapping. Insite designed the look and feel, the architecture and user experience, wrote the content, produced the maps and user downloadable resources, as well as conceived how to position the content for various target audiences before programming the entire site on a stage to ensure the contract programming team would have an easy go of implementing the site into their server environment.

The goal was to create an accessible body of knowledge that could be both the indisputable main source of knowledge on Ontario terrior but also an invaluable technical and shareable marketing resource for the wine industry inclusive of wineries, wine influencers, marketers, sommeliers and the public at large — to get everyone on the same page and heading the same direction on a global stage. The result is easily one of the world’s most comprehensive and easily understood wine terroir resources for appellations and a great influence toward cohesion of a greater goal for Ontario Wineries.

As a company well engaged in the business of wine as well as having a deep love for wine, we find ourselves using the website on a regular basis and wonder what it would be like without it. Six years later the site stands basically unchanged yet still looks and works as well today as then. A testament to passionate work and a great partnership with the client toward the goal of creating a legacy rather than just a website. Cheers to the industry and the team of VQA.

Creating Brand Interaction

A critical part of a brand expression is it’s home — the place where is lives and from which it heads out into the world. Many brands miss the opportunity to create brand environments that help tell the story of the product and the people behind it. A place where your audience can visit, learn, engage and be consumed by what the brand is all about.

With Dillon’s Small Batch we assisted in designing and building a physical experience for the people and products — an environment or living “package” that allows people to get to know and experiment with the brand within a more theatrical setting.

Dillon’s spaces and experiences were conceived to provide vistors with entertainment and learning within an aesthetic and feeling that tells a the more emotional side of the brand essence that typical retail can’t do.

In addition, the environment is allowed to emphasize the brand package and further create excitement for what Dillon’s is trying to do.

Insite worked on most aspects of the design and build including creative, technical drawings, working directly with trades, selected paint palettes and textures and even design built custom lighting, retail signage, tasting experience kits, bathroom fixtures and bar fixtures. Insite also selected the furniture and assisted in merchandising layouts.

Nestled amongst the Niagara wineries along the road into Niagara-on-the-lake Ontario lies a big old red barn — soon to be the home of the new Niagara Oast House Brewers. The brewery is the passion of a group of  local Niagara wine and beer industry friends that decided beer was their love.

We assisted in brand creation starting with naming and positioning, then identity, package and interactive.

With construction underway and test brewing commencing, the brand is evolving and heading for bottles late summer.

Check back for more.

Oast House website: http://oasthousebrewers.ca/