Timeline: The Legend Grows
199? – Joel meets Richard at McCann. Joel’s the writer. Richard’s the suit. There’s Deborah too, the rising star of the creative department.
Richard and Joel occasionally gigging together at places like Bimm.
Deborah furnishes her awards cabinet.
October 29, 2014 – Email from Joel to Richard: It’s been ages since we connected. I’d like to catch up and compare notes.
Let’s do marketing differently.
No more hierarchy.
No more “account” and “creative” pigeon-holes.
The work comes first.
Be great to work with and you produce great work.
One conversation leads to another. One connection leads to another.
Because we’re hands-on we wanted to become if not competent at least knowledgeable about WordPress. Into the belly of the beast we went. To Sheridan Continuing and Professional Studies and an audience with the King of WordPress, Mr. Ben Block.
Just the guy we needed to head up our Web Development.
Gary and Joel go way back to days working together at Due North Communications and beyond. A creative team.
All Branderos lacked was a digital guru thought as strategically about the digital realm as the rest of us think about branding, marketing and communications. That’s Michael.
He is a machine. No other way to describe him. Oh forgot to mention he also worked at McCann. Thanks McCann.
Michael opened the door for us. Meet Shauna. Our bespoke Media Director.
What’s the secret sauce?
Take marketers who have spent their careers pursuing their profession with passion, curiosity, intelligence and creativity. Work with people at the peak of their skills.
Marketing is hard. We don’t make it easy. We make it smart.
The quality of our dialogue with our clients is the key to insights that help advance their business.
The smarter the questions, the smarter the answers.
We believe there’s no line in the sand that divides business strategy from marketing strategy.
The objective is the same: create a platform to drive sustainable business growth.
That starts with insights. We don’t care where they come from – a distributor, an installer, a customer, a sales rep, a supplier. Everyone knows one piece of an enterprise. It’s our job to glue the pieces together into a real brand – meaning a brand that’s built on real-world experiences.
The process isn’t linear – because it never ends. Every insight leads to the next. Every insight contributes to the strategic foundation of a brand.
Our role is to facilitate the marketing development process, in true collaboration.
With no platform bias – we’re digitally agnostic, meaning we don’t have a built-in bias for any specific form of media.
Creative isn’t the product, it’s the outcome of the process. We don’t have a signature style. That’s antithetical to what we believe in – which is placing the client at centre stage.
It’s all about you, not us
Nazlin Hirji
Executive Director, Sheridan Continuing and Professional Studies
“They really listen and understand our business, our customers, and what we are striving for – our deliverables as well as the relationship we are trying to create with our customers. Yay!”
Richard Shekter
Mediator & Arbitrator
Now that Shekter Legal has been successfully launched, I just wanted to take a minute to thank you for the role you played. As you well know by now, I’m something of a marketing novice so this process was a bit foreign to me. But you guys were tireless in helping bring an ever sharper focus – not just to my communications, but more importantly, to my whole business strategy and offering. My thinking about my business shifted several times, based on our conversations and through your work on my identity and website. But you guys just kept me on track, through whatever 20+ drafts of the website. This is my whole career encapsulated in a website. Not an easy task. But I feel that the website truly reflects my capabilities and my personality. I salute you all for your professionalism and unflappable dedication to seeing that my identity, message and website would serve as a solid foundation for a new chapter in my career. I give you the highest recommendation. In a word – Thanks! Richard.
Leslie Vine
of Vine&Associates
I worked with Branderos to create my new website and I really had no idea what I was getting into. I thought of a website as an electronic brochure. You know. Just the facts, ma’am. Pretty corporate and “nice”. But, no, that’s not the Branderos way. They wanted to create a website that showcased ME! Not just the facts, but something that would be more of a reflection of who I am and what it’s like to work with me. They said I had a “somewhat larger-than-life personality” and they wanted me to show that. Was I prepared to share that in a business setting? Many discussions, videos, interviews and more discussions followed. Then I got to see the completed website and my jaw dropped. They got it. They got me. It was clear and bold. And I was thrilled! But I wondered what people would say. It wasn’t what I was used to seeing for a business website but I had invested so much time in putting this together. Within the first 24 hours following the launch, I started getting a flood of very excited rave reviews from clients and colleagues. They loved it too. People starting asking who did my website and I started referring my clients to Branderos. Then my clients started referring their colleagues to Branderos. Well, you get the picture. The Branderos knew what was best for my business. They dug down deep to tell my story and that’s what my clients and colleagues wanted to see. I love the site and I’m so proud of how it turned out. And I’m thrilled to bring them in for my clients who love them and their work too.
Bill Noorduyn
Owner, Bill’s Ground Care
Richard and Joel immediately understood what makes our small lawn care company unique is that it’s the opposite of those anonymous lawn care companies that are focused on volume – how many cuts can they do in a week. We’ve always treated ours as a family business – casual, professional, committed and passionate about all things green. We don’t look at this strictly as a business – we bring joy to our work. That’s not at all easy to contain in a brand or a website. What really excites me and my team is that they really understood us and then built a brand and website that reflects who we are, our sense of fun, in addition to our professionalism. The biggest test for me: would this brand and website work for another lawn care company? Not in a million years. This is a perfect reflection of me and my team. We’re
Branderos (bran-dair-ohz)
Sounds like sombrero: som-brair-ohz
We wanted to bring More Bang! to the world of marketing.
Channel our inner cowboy, cowgirl and cowthey.
And a little voice inside our heads saying: Whatever you do, don’t take yourselves too seriously. Not that we ever had that problem.
Born of the belief that the World Wide Web is the great marketing equalizer.
Now every brand has the ability to punch above its weight, no matter how small or big it is.
Hence Branderos – More Bang!
Did you go to university, then shift direction, then shift again, then go into marketing, then work your way around brands and clients and agencies, then decide you want to do things differently, then look around and realize that if you want do things differently – you have to do it yourself, which leads to wondering and wandering in search of other dedicated professionals who share the dream and live the dream and not only that, love to laugh, collaborate, hate silos and being told what to do, want to have their voice at the table, want to get into an intense dialogue about the next step in digital evolution, curious about apps, loves great design, takes the business seriously, but not themselves, thinks in unorthodox ways, and enjoys nothing more than a conversation that takes an unexpected direction, leading to a fresh insight, that in turn, leads to a connection that has an idea that turns into so much stronger than what was first imagined.
That’s the Legend of the Branderos – a narrative that continues with an ever increasing cast.
Join the crew.
