February 21, 2024
New Year, New You, New Tools: Leveraging AI in 2024

In today’s digital landscape, where marketing technologies are evolving rapidly, how are advertisers staying ahead of the curve? Among the latest advancements in martech, artificial intelligence (AI) stands out as a game-changer for marketers in several aspects of the advertising world. AI can revolutionize many aspects of advertising, from strategy and workflow, to creativity (in overcoming that annoying writer’s block!). If you still haven’t incorporated AI into your toolkit— it’s not too late! Here’s a quick guide to help harness AI to optimize your work in 2024:

  1. Define your objectives: Before integrating AI into your work, define what you are trying to achieve. Are you looking to improve workflow, increase customer engagement, optimize campaigns, or enhance lead generation? Identifying your goals will help determine what AI tools you need to implement.
  2. Learn what tools are available: Based on your outlined objectives, look into AI tools or platforms that align with your needs. For example:
    • To improve customer experience and guide users effectively through the sales funnel, look into implementing Chatbots to provide instant customer support or Natural Language Processing (NLP) for sentiment analysis, social listening, and understanding customer feedback. (ex. HubSpot Chatbot Builder, Salesforce Einstein)
    • Upgrade your analysis by incorporating Predictive Analytics tools to forecast future trends, customer behaviour, and potential leads, helping you make the most efficient data-driven decisions. (ex. Google AI, Microsoft Azure)
    • Optimize your advertising campaigns using in-platform AI to segment your audience more effectively (targeting them with relevant messaging), analyze ad performance, and adjust bidding strategies in real time to maximize ROI. (Stackadapt Page Context AI, Google AI-Powered Search)
  3. Support AI with first-party data: Just like an excited analyst, AI thrives on data. Uploading audience data you’ve collected before and during your next campaigns, will help AI gain insight into customer targeting, behaviour, preferences etc. With third-party cookies phasing out, knowing how to serve your audience best is crucial to campaign success. Remember to respect user privacy and obtain consent for data usage— your tactics, analytics, and customer experience depend on it!
  4. Monitor and measure: Continually monitor your AI-driven marketing initiatives to confirm tactics are effectively driving results while identifying areas of opportunity. Measure key metrics that align with your objectives such as conversion rates, bounce rate, and customer satisfaction, then analyze these data points to refine your strategies and outcomes.

Implementing AI in your 2024 marketing strategies will transform how you reach your audience, optimize campaigns, and accelerate growth. By defining your objectives, learning about what AI tools are available, utilizing first-party data inputs, and measuring data outputs, you can successfully leverage AI to your advantage and stay ahead of the competition in this dynamic digital landscape.

March 29, 2023
The Unbeatable Benefits of Joining Colour

Told from the perspective of a current co-op student.

Thinking about a co-op placement with Colour? Here’s why you should consider it!

My Background

I am a Commerce Co-op student from Dalhousie University in my second year. I’ve been working at Colour for over 3 months now and have been enjoying every minute of it. I get first hand experience creating and managing campaigns, something that without Colour I would not get until after I graduated. It is a really valuable learning experience for me to be able to watch and learn from people who are at the top of their field. 

The Culture

The company culture at Colour is supportive. Even with a hybrid environment and employees in different cities and countries, we’re still able to connect with each other and build meaningful relationships. Though I’m based in Halifax,  I’m still able to learn from and get to know the employees in Toronto on a very similar level to those I see in the office. We do bi-weekly huddles where we present topics to each other that are uplifting, fun, or educational that allow us to enjoy that collaborative office environment. On Friday afternoons we have catch up calls where we get to experience the “water cooler” chatter even if we’re not physically present with one another. I’ve met some truly great people that I know I will be able to maintain relationships with even past my time at Colour.

The Opportunities

I have had the chance to work with the entire strategy team throughout different projects, and Colour has done a great job at giving me a variety of experiences and projects to work on. I came into this job with limited knowledge but the team has given me so many chances to learn, and presented unique experiences that will prepare both myself and future co-op students for life after university. Being a co-op student a digital agency gives us a chance to explore where we want to work in the future, and helps us to decide what we want out of a workplace. Being able to work in the industry we are considering will help us gauge if it’s right for us, and allow us to scout out which opportunities will provide the best future for us. I have had opportunities to work closely with big clients and leaders in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. More than learning about the industry, I get to develop professional skills such as public speaking, written and oral competency and more.

Why does Colour like it?

I asked one of our senior strategists, Emma Richter, why Colour likes hiring co-op students: “We love the Co-op program because it introduces us to potential future candidates and helps us to understand what types of experiences new graduates are leaving with: what they’re learning in university and on their other, similar work terms. Co-op programs are also a great way for us to further understand and improve our training and onboarding processes for the future.” 

April 22, 2022
The Value Of Proper Social Media Planning And Asking The Right Questions

Success in marketing can be attributed to many things, none more so than planning. Every successful advertising campaign involves captivating creative work and the right media plan—the creative content attracts and holds your audience’s attention, delivering the desired message, and the media plan connects that message to the right people.

Before establishing your campaign plan, here are a few things to consider when determining your audience.

  • What platforms are your audiences using? Identify the different social circles that exist within their networks. 
  • Are you targeting a persona or a behaviour? The more applicable your services or products are to more people, the harder it can be to carve out a persona. Focus on common behaviours or interests, as opposed to demographics. 
  • Are you fostering a relationship with your audience? Customer service can shine through by developing a consistent system for sharing user-generated content and adding extra emphasis on brand love. Rewarding users who are frequent engagers turns them into brand ambassadors. 
  • Further develop your list of brand ambassadors using a variety of tactics, helping to disseminate your message and brand values through employee advocacy or influencer marketing. 
  • How far down the marketing funnel are you target audiences? Depending on where they fall, the message and creative should always align. 
  • Are you going too big? Quality connections on a smaller targeted scale are often what matter most.

Back to Basics

When it comes to social media planning, the medium is made up of people as well as their networks, so how can marketers develop a plan to tap into these expanded social circles and accompanying interests? Buying social media ads takes the traditional media route to connect with potential customers. Using a variety of detailed targeting criteria, marketers can serve ups ads that reach their specific desired audiences. 

Optimizing for social

When it comes to social media planning, the medium is made up of people as well as their networks, so Traditional media planning doesn’t work well in the social space, as demonstrated by the often-lower conversion rates of Facebook ads. While Facebook ads work well for specific industries, it’s important to understand not just your target audience, but the segments and hyper-targeted groups within your audience. This allows us to engage with the right people, an efficient way to increase conversion rates and drive ROI.

Benefits of social media planning

Remember:    

  • A successful social media advertising campaign starts by creating strong content around a marketing message. An effective social media plan is then needed to help connect that message with its intended audience. 
  • Social media shouldn’t be siloed and separated from the rest of your marketing efforts. It should always be a robust and integrated part of your marketing and system plans.
April 13, 2021
Social Media Industry Update: Facebook Analytics

Last week Facebook dropped some major news. 

In an email and a notification in-platform they announced to all advertisers that “after June 30, 2021, Facebook Analytics will no longer be available.” 

If you missed it (or you want to know how it’ll impact your business) we’ve got the details for you here.

What we think it means:

While all brands and advertisers have 3 months to access their data and save it securely, we expect that we’ll hear more about this from Facebook. We can’t say for sure, but for now we’re looking at a few possible scenarios:

  1. Instead of data being readily available under Facebook Analytics, advertisers might have to dig deeper into the Business Suite or Ads/Events Manager at the campaign level. This may be a business decision to push their core products more, possibly as a response to Apple potentially turning off detailed data tracking for its users by default. 
  2. Is there an alternative on its way? It is possible that a third party partnership is in the works that will replace the in-house analytics/insights tool.
  3. A number of businesses already use tools like Amplitude, Mixpanel or SEMRush more than Facebook Analytics. It’s possible that Facebook is being proactive in getting rid of something that wasn’t preferred anyway. 
  4. Facebook sees data as its most valuable asset. They might be looking at it as a potential profit centre by following Amazon’s footsteps and making it pay-to-play for advertisers.

What should I do?

Rest assured that we’ll continue to have access to data at the campaign level for reporting purposes. There is no action to be taken for now, but we’ll keep a vigilant eye on forums and updates from Facebook for any worthwhile chatter that may have a significant impact on businesses like yours.

January 11, 2021
Why Quality Content Is More Important Than Ever

Anyone that has worked in an agency has noticed a growing trend of brands developing their creative in-house. Apps, user-friendly, integrative software and platforms make it easy for anyone and everyone to become their very own content creators and publishers. 

Evolution of quality content

In the 1960s, the creative concept was king, setting one ad apart from another. And with only a handful of television channels to choose from, it wasn’t difficult to reach your intended audience. As media channels became more abundant and fragmented, the creative’s overall role diminished in comparison to the growing importance of the media mix. 

Now, with social media advertising, creative rises back to the top, as newsfeeds on the most popular social platforms become cluttered with ads, all competing with organic content for attention.

Accessible authors

The result of all this is that there’s more accessible content today than ever before and this abundance is only growing. Over the last few months, online traffic has soared. Companies with an established online presence are thriving as audiences have turned to e-commerce and online venues for entertainment and shopping. 

This influx leaves advertisers with the same problem that they’ve always faced: how to stand out from the clutter of digital marketing messages. 

A flooded feed

That problem becomes exacerbated when you want to place your advertising message into the even more populated realm of consumer-generated content. Your message must now compete with personal updates, tweets, pictures and video content, memes, live feeds, and competitors’ messages. That means obtaining a meaningful share of consumer attention is becoming more and more difficult. 

The answer to having your message stand out is quality. Due to the quantity of brand messages and overwhelming content, an impactful message created around (or paired with) quality content will ensure that your ad gets shared. 

This is key to social media advertising. Ads or posts that inspire engagement are shared or saved, often resulting in a greater likelihood of being seen. This makes them extremely valuable on platforms like Facebook and Instagram. 

Consumer perception

With the incredible uptick in online shopping and overwhelming saturation of brands having a presence on social media, many consumers are using their feeds to find products. The look, tone and feel of your advertising helps relay the message to audiences that your brand is just what they’re looking for: authentic, reputable, engaging and worth the money they’re willing to spend. 

January 7, 2021
Colour names Randy Newman, new CEO

January 6, 2021 – HALIFAX

New York-based Randy Newman has taken over leadership of the agency’s Canadian and US operations, signalling the company’s commitment to growth at the intersection of data, technology and creative advertising.

Having successfully navigated through one of the most unpredictable years in our industry, 2021 brings a shift in senior leadership for creative-digital agency, Colour. 

Randy Newman joined the agency in 2016 as VP of Media and Strategy and opened the agency’s New York office, responsible for growing practice areas around paid media planning and execution, as well as reporting and analytics. He became EVP in early 2020 and began overseeing people, process and culture across all three offices, in addition to leading strategy for key client accounts. 

“It’s an honour for me to take the helm of a great agency with such deep roots as a creative force and digital leader. I’ve witnessed firsthand how the team at Colour has expanded the agency’s Canadian footprint over the past few years and I’m excited to replicate that growth south of the border in 2021 and beyond,” said Newman.

Newman follows in the footsteps of long-term CEO Chris Keevill, who stepped away earlier in 2020 to assume leadership of the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. Keevill remains owner & chairman of Colour and will continue to advise Newman. “After meeting in New York at an alumni event, we became fast friends. Clients rely heavily on Randy’s smarts. He has a unique ability to simplify the complexity that connects creative story-telling to data and digital media.” says Keevill.

With global economic growth forecasted for this year, Newman maintains an optimistic outlook for the advertising industry as a whole and believes that the agency’s future looks bright. “2020 was an incredibly challenging year for Colour and for many of our clients, but our team persevered through sheer talent and the strength of work that’s been produced over the past few months. After some big wins to close out 2020, it’s encouraging to see us back on a trajectory of accelerated growth entering 2021.”

Colour is a creative-digital agency with expertise in media planning, social media marketing and content production — a combination that contributes to omni-channel marketing strategy and execution that integrates seamlessly across today’s most popular platforms. With offices in Toronto, Halifax and New York, Colour has seen its greatest growth of late in how it brings technology, data analytics and innovation to the forefront of the strategic marketing planning process in the areas of health and pharma, food, and automotive. Colour’s clients include AstraZeneca, Voortman Bakery, Nature’s Way Canada, Hankook Tire Corporation, Argus Insurance, Garrison Brewery, Sol Cuisine, and others.

For more information contact:

Leslie Keevill 
leslie@colour.ca
902-579-4598

November 19, 2019
#TheFuture100

This past Wednesday, President Barack Obama spoke to a sold-out crowd in Halifax. Within that crowd was a specially selected group of 100 youth, from over 290 who applied to the Future Leaders Initiative.

As part of the initiative, applicants answered a section of questions on how they demonstrated leadership in the community, that included elaborating on a social justice issue that matters to them and what they would ask President Obama if they had the opportunity. This initiative was sponsored by law firm Stewart McKelvey, Business is Jammin’ as part of the Black Business Initiative, and the Delmore ‘Buddy’ Daye Learning Institute here in Halifax.

As part of the historic event, Colour hosted The Future 100 at a pre-event networking reception, at Colour’s Halifax office to help make this event a lifetime memory for many that attended.

“As a board member of the BIJ, I’ve had the privilege to read all of the applications and I must say it was so rewarding and inspiring to learn more about the young black leaders we have emerging right here in Nova Scotia,” said Shaq Smith, one of the members of the panel that selected attendees, and a Senior Strategist at Colour. “As a committee, we spent two days reading through hundreds of applications, and after reading about all of the remarkable things going on across the province, I’ve never been more confident in the future of our Black communities than I am right now.”

The event was truly inspiring and an unmistakably motivating opportunity. It brought together some of the province’s future leaders, to connect on shared visions for the future, and for many, to see a role model who has been inspiring not just those in attendance, but people around the world for over a decade. The event demonstrated the compelling impact these initiatives have had on the province’s youth.  

“It meant a lot to me as a kid, and now I’m getting to live out a childhood dream in a sense,” said Tyler Nadolny, one of the selected attendees.“It’s just kind of a glimmer of optimism going into the future, getting to hear his story a little bit more, see how far and how his journey brought him to become the President of the United States, and hopefully find a few little things to implement into my life to hopefully help me better achieve my goals in the future, so that’s why I’m excited personally.”

The DBDLI is an Africentric Institute, providing support for people of African descent reach to their full potential through education, and creating opportunities to help them thrive. With education being so key to their purpose and vision, they help inform society and government at large on how best to achieve these goals.

BIJ is a charitable initiative in Nova Scotia, focusing on developing education and programming that helps Black and racially visible minority youth through mentorship, education and entrepreneurship, enriching their lives and the business community at large.

 “Colour generously opened their space to host The Future 100 and to provide a real VIP experience,” said Ashley Hill, Youth Program Coordinator at BIJ. “As storytellers themselves, Colour immediately took action to provide youth from across Nova Scotia the opportunity to share their own stories and make lasting connections. Youth were recognized for their excellence and leadership; we acknowledge and thank Colour for such tremendous support. There couldn’t have been a space more perfect, or an organization more dedicated to partnering with BIJ to share our youth’s stories!”

Our thanks go out to Business is Jammin’, the Delmore ‘Buddy’ Day Learning Institute and #TheFuture100 for an unforgettable evening.

June 18, 2019
Colour acquires social shop, names president and CCO

The agency looks to beef up its strategy chops by acquiring Bright Blue Wave and making a handful of senior appointments.

Originally published on strategyonline.ca

A number of changes have come to agency Colour Creative Persuasion in recent months, including an acquisition and the appointment of a president and chief creative officer.

Most recently, Martha Stevens joined the agency as VP of strategy in Halifax. She will provide strategic counsel and lead client relationships for Colour’s clients across Atlantic Canada, including Nova Scotia-based neutraceutical company Nature’s Way and New Brunswick-based bakery Fancy Pokket.

Her appointment follows other significant hires at Colour. About a month ago, it hired Paul Lockhard as president and Julie Martinson as chief creative officer. The pair have stepped into the newly created roles and will be based out of Toronto.

Lockhard (with whom Colour CEO Chris Keevill had a pre-existing working relationship) will lead strategic initiatives for clients, while focusing on strengthening industry partnerships and building out the agency’s CRM and data insights capabilities, according to Keevill. He joins Colour after serving as president of Proof, where he led a brand repositioning and was responsible for growing revenue and expanding the communication agency’s creative and digital capabilities. He has also worked on digital and CRM initiatives at Labatt.

Martinson follows Lockhard from Proof, where she was creative director (with prior experience in CPG marketing at Union Creative) and will lead creative across Colour’s Toronto, Halifax and New York offices. Keevill, who says the pair wanted to continue working together, describes their hiring as a “two for one deal” for Colour.

The new hires are the result of a shift in client needs, according to Keevill. “More of the complex work that our clients are looking for requires deep strategy work,” he says. “So strategic creative through Julie and strategic planning and digital through Paul is further developing and strengthening our strategic consulting practice.”

Colour refers to that planning work as system planning. “We’re taking the complexity of the customer journey across fragmented channels and we’re distilling that complexity into a synthesized system plan, which then maps the customer journey against media and against storytelling,” Keevill says. “Baked into that sometimes is advertising, so we can still look like an ad agency. But it’s not the biggest piece any more by a long shot.”

In recent years, Colour has added a programmatic media planning and buying department that operates out of the New York office.

A recent acquisition also speaks to the shop’s evolving priorities.

In March, Colour expanded its strategic capabilities with the acquisition of Toronto-based social media agency Bright Blue Wave. As part of the agreement, it now works with Bright Blue Wave’s roster of clients, including Mercer, EQ Bank, Embark Health, Parkin and Knowledge First Financial. Meanwhile, the acquired company’s founders, Sharad Verma and Brenda Verma, were appointed to senior roles within the agency.

Until around 2007, Colour partnered with Radian6 (which was acquired by cloud computing giant Salesforce in 2011), on social listening, according to Keevill. From there, it developed a community management and content marketing practices.

Bright Blue Wave operates in similar spaces, but with more of a focus on content and social media strategy for B2B clients, he says. “We just added the heft and the scale of their clients to our roster, and just grew the business that way.”

The acquisition has already helped Colour pitch and win the business of Canada 411. In addition, the agency is continuing to develop its cannabis practice, having already served as AOR for Aurora Cannabis for a few years.

Following the acquisition, Sharad Verma was named VP of strategy and Brenda Verma as VP of social media within the parent agency. Prior to Sharad’s arrival, strategy was led by other senior strategists within the agency’s consulting practice.

Both Sharad and Brenda started their careers as consultants at PwC prior to launching Bright Blue Wave, and Sharad had prior experience as president of Digital Cement, the former creative and advertising arm of tech company Pitney Bowes.

Meanwhile, VP of strategy Stevens was previously VP of sales and marketing at Atlantic Lottery Corporation and acting CEO and director or marketing at Tourism Nova Scotia. She got her start at Hawk Communications and has held various marketing roles at telco NBTel, Aliant and Bell in both Canada and the U.S., through which she previously worked with Keevill.

Individual Photo: Martha (Marty) Stevens, (VP Strategy)

Group Photo: From left to right, Paul Lockhard (President), Julie Martinson (Chief Creative Officer), Sharad Verma (VP Strategy), Brenda Verma (VP Social Media)

October 16, 2018
Local McDonald’s Restaurant Owners Step Up to Help Youth in North Preston

Halifax, Nova Scotia – Four local McDonald’s franchisees are stepping up to support the dreams and aspirations of youth in North Preston. The four owners collectively will be the named sponsor of the initiative that supports the refurbishment of the basketball court in North Preston to give youth – through basketball – the opportunity to continue their education.

On the weekend of October 19th – 21st, $1 from every Big Mac sold at participating restaurants in the Halifax Regional Municipality will go directly to the North Preston Basketball initiative.

McDonald’s has a long history of building stronger communities and recognizes the role that sport and education play in fostering development of individuals in the community.

This gift was inspired by the initiative of Shaquille Smith, who grew up in North Preston. Shaquille drove this project with the help of a $100,000 grant from Nova Scotia Communities, Culture and Heritage, $100,000 from the Halifax Regional Municipality and $10,000 from the community fund of local Councillor David Hendsbee.

“When we first met with Shaquille, his passion to make a difference in his community through basketball was something we wanted to support,” said Peter MacIsaac, local owner of McDonald’s. “Shaquille’s vision to help youth was built on his own experience. He got to attend university because of a basketball scholarship to Acadia University. By recognizing the importance of sport and education, we knew we could make a real impact for youth in the community.”

The McDonald’s North Preston basketball court will also provide education programs to better prepare youth for university or college. North Preston basketball alumni will play an important part of the education program.

“Although I am excited to bring a new basketball court to the community, this project is not just about basketball – it’s also about ensuring players who get to attend university or college are prepared for what’s to come. Finishing their degree is the goal,” said Shaquille Smith. “With the new basketball court, players from North Preston will have the same opportunities I did. With the addition of preparatory programs, we can help them be better positioned to finish their degrees.”

Smith added, “I want to thank the local McDonald’s owners for stepping up to build a stronger community in North Preston. I’m proud of their commitment to the community by fostering the development of youth.”

To recognize and acknowledge the best of community leadership, McDonald’s has invited Shaquille Smith to Atlanta for the 2019 McDonald’s All American in March. Shaquille will get to choose one high school player from North Preston to join him.

About McDonald’s

In 1967, Canadians welcomed the first McDonald’s restaurant to Richmond, British Columbia. Today, McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada Limited has become part of the Canadian fabric, serving close to three million guests every day. Together McDonald’s and our franchisees, proudly employ nearly 100,000 people from coast-to-coast and approximately 90 per cent of McDonald’s 1,400 Canadian restaurants are locally owned and operated by independent entrepreneurs. Of the almost $1 billion we spend on food, beverages and packaging, more than 85 per cent is purchased from over 100 suppliers in Canada.