Glossi Mag is an online publication by Matte PR, a LGBTQ+ and woman-owned communications firm started by Heidi Ruggier based in Toronto. The magazine covers a wide range of topics ranging from the arts, culture, fashion, and design.

As we were updating Matte PR’s website, it was a good opportunity to do the same for Glossi Mag’s website. Since its launch six years ago, technical upgrades, innovations, and design trends have changed and surpassed what was feasible on the original website. There was a need for a new website that was not only fresh and new, but robust and versatile enough for the firm to run smoothly without hiccups and technical limitations.

The client searched for a new theme for the site and found Zermatt, a contemporary multi-concept agency theme. It comes with several different layouts and functionalities to showcase portfolio and run a blog. The theme not only fits the need and feel of the firm, but also for Glossi Mag. We ended up using the theme to update both sites, since the theme provides multiple layouts for different styles and focus.

We used the demo content from the theme as the foundation and templates of the new website. From there, we made significant edits by adding custom CSS and updating the theme settings with the firm’s branding styles. The theme is very minimal, allowing the existing website content like the portfolio and the achievements of the firm to speak for themselves.

Like the Matte PR website, a main challenge of the project was importing all the content from the live website to the staging environment where the new site was built. As an online publication, Glossi Mag has significantly more content than the Matte PR site, including over a hundred articles. It was very important to ensure everything was migrated smoothly without errors, especially since there are many articles with links, images, and videos.

Another challenge was some of the limitations posed by the theme. The front page features different categories of articles showcased in grids and sliders, sometimes with custom thumbnail aspect ratios and dimensions. Like the Matte PR site, we had to ensure all posts generate the same set of thumbnails and image dimensions. Another limit of the theme is the slider cannot skip posts or offset posts. We circumvent this issue by using custom CSS to hide some of the posts based on specific dating or order criteria.

Compared to the Matte PR iste, this website required significantly more work and customization. We not only took into consideration the user’s need to browse, search, and read the articles, but the need of the staff at Matte PR and writers to easily create and publish articles by themselves without requiring extensive technical training or know-how. Since we added more custom layouts and design, we also have to add more custom responsive CSS to complement the theme’s own responsiveness.

Like Matte PR, the build process for Glossi Mag was very efficient as we used planning documentation to form a list of objectives, requests, reviews, and milestones. While iteratively building the new website, we also took the opportunity to lighten the website load by removing older, unused files like images and videos, and replacing them with optimized files. All of this was done to ensure the website hosted on our server will perform and load quicker than its older, slower predecessor.

To see more, click the link below:

Glossi Mag

Matte PR is a LGBTQ+ and woman-owned communications firm started by Heidi Ruggier based in Toronto. Trusted by both independent and global brands across the world, Matte PR prides itself on inclusivity and seeks to amplify the voices of partners who are a force for good. The firm also has an online publication, Glossi Mag.

7C Laboratories and Matte PR have been close collaborators since our earliest days and our collaboration continues to the present day, providing clients with a full-service experience. The firm originally used a blog-style single-page website which has served them for six years. In that time, technical upgrades, innovations, and design trends have changed and surpassed what was feasible on the original website. There was a need for a new website that was not only fresh and new, but robust and versatile enough for the firm to run smoothly without hiccups and technical limitations.

The client searched for a new theme for the site and found Zermatt, a contemporary multi-concept agency theme. It comes with several different layouts and functionalities to showcase portfolio and run a blog. The theme not only fits the need and feel of the firm, but also their sister-site for Glossi Mag. We used this theme to update both sites, since the theme provides multiple layouts for different styles and focus.

We used the demo content from the theme as the foundation and templates of the new website. From there, we edited the theme extensively by adding custom CSS and updating the theme settings with the firm’s branding styles. The theme is very minimal, allowing the existing website content like the portfolio and the achievements of the firm to speak for themselves.

Throughout the building process we kept a sheet of changes to be approved, reviewed, and completed. This iterative process and close communication with the Matte PR team makes the building phase simple and efficient.

A challenge of the project was importing all the content from the live website to the staging environment where the new website is built. As the site has six years worth of content including high-quality photos, videos, portfolio, and blog posts, it was very important to ensure everything was migrated smoothly without errors.

Another challenge was some of the limitations posed by the theme. The website features many posts and portfolios showcased in grids and sliders, sometimes with custom thumbnail aspect ratios and dimensions. We had to ensure all posts and portfolios generate the same set of thumbnails and image dimensions. By setting up specific standards for images and thumbnail generation, we ensure all posts and portfolios both in the present and future are showcased properly without any aberrations.

Although the theme is responsive, we had to customize many of the sliders, images, and layouts, making it important to apply our own responsive CSS, ensuring the website looks as intended and acts as expected on all devices. Once the new website is completed and the final design approved, we pushed it from staging to production on our hosting server.

To see more, click the link below:

Matte PR

Kenneth Choi (H.BSc, M.Sc, R.Ac, R.TCMP) is the resident Registered Acupuncturist and Registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner at Richmond Hill Acupuncture and Natural Therapy, specialized in providing natural remedies for residents of Richmond Hill and the surrounding area. Kenneth is also the Director of the Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture programs at the Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine Academy in Toronto.

We created a website that is not only simple and elegant for visitors to interact with, but also provides ease of administration in managing bookings and clients. Our goal was to provide a fully self-sufficient website to connect patients and natural health providers.

Building a website with pre-existing and easily integrated technology allowed us to focus on not just site design and performance, but also benefits we could provide for business operations.This included asking questions such as what tools on the website will make day-to-day management of the clinic easier, more efficient, and streamlined? What about connecting with patients and curious newcomers? How can we best introduce and promote the benefits of the clinic’s practices?

Visitors of the website can learn about what services and treatments are offered at the clinic and book online appointments. Clients can schedule, approve, or reject upcoming appointments, contact their patients, and update the services available — all from the backend of the website.

Richmond Hill Acupuncture and Natural Therapy focuses on the natural health benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine and practices. As such, we conducted several changes to the existing brand to feature a green and blue colour scheme with a spacious layout in order to give a sense of relaxation, purity, and natural growth throughout the site experience.

To see more, click the link below:

Richmond Hill Acupuncture & Natural Clinic

4D ChinatownTO is a community project created by the Toronto Chinatown BIA (Business Improvement Area) to bring the neighborhood and businesses of Chinatown directly to peoples’ devices during stay-at-home orders. It is a virtual guide where people can visit Chinatown’s iconic businesses and learn about their history as told by their storekeepers, entrepreneurs, mentors, restaurateurs, immigrants, and Chinatown historian Arlene Chan.

The goal of 4D ChinatownTO is to promote online traffic and awareness of the featured businesses as many small, independent brick-and-mortar stores and restaurants are facing enormous challenges adapting to pandemic quarantine measures.

Without much of the foot traffic and in-store shopping that were once the norm of Chinatown, businesses are adapting to new practices like online shopping, curbside pickup, and delivery. The Chinatown BIA seeks to help transition traditional local businesses to online shopping and let both new and old patrons explore Chinatown from the comfort and safety of their home.

A series of 360° interactive videos with audio commentary is presented to visitors, who can select various waypoints from an overview map. Visitors can explore a 360° view of the business and listen to interviews and narrations. Store details and links to their own websites are included, so visitors can look up or shop for products and services offered by the featured businesses.

The guide is built on a low-impact slider system, allowing for the presentation of the 360° videos alongside additional contextual user-interface elements. Each slide provides the user with the option to mute or unmute the video, read up on business information, and navigate through the streets of Chinatown through an on-screen mini-map. Users can also navigate to an overview map, where they can view all of Chinatown from a bird’s-eye view, selecting from all of the available 360°videos.

Much of the project was built with the plugin Slider Revolution. The videos, filmed by a third-party production team, were uploaded to YouTube where viewers can control the camera. The design of the guide itself is kept minimal as the content is the main focus. A stylized map of the Chinatown area is decorated with subtle animations.

A main challenge of the project was the various technical limitations placed by YouTube on the integration of 360° videos, especially when the videos are embedded and streamed. Another challenge was working inside Slider Revolution. While no-doubt powerful and capable of what we envisioned, the plugin has its own limitations on streaming videos and audio. Audio became a challenge as our initial intent to auto-play the narration conflicts with web browser policies, which were remedied through various techniques such as streaming audio and video separately.

Making sure 4D Chinatown TO works on mobile was also another priority and challenge, as we wanted to ensure users can visit and watch the videos on all devices for convenience. Not only did we face the typical challenge of building a responsive design for a diverse set of screen sizes and devices but also network and browser differences, which always proves a challenge when working with streaming-heavy content.

Prior to beginning development, we took the time to assess Chinatown BIA’s website for speed and performance. Since we intended to play 360° videos across different devices, it was critical the website was not only up-to-date, but fast and lightweight.

As project development continued, the amount of data streamed and loaded on page increased. It became imperative that input by the user responded to interaction quickly, especially on mobile where the slider takes more time to load assets like graphic content and videos.

Overall, 4D Chinatown proved to be a useful tool in highlighting some of the area’s most interesting history and businesses. Providing an outlet for users to interact with their favorite businesses like never before, 4D Chinatown has the utility to act as an interactive and expanding directory well beyond the duration of current lockdown orders.

To see more, click the link below:

4D Chinatown TO

Nyris is a German artificial intelligence company offering a visual search API designed to provide visual identification and search capabilities to any existing application, website or mobile app at a fraction of the cost of other solutions on the market. nyris is considered a leader in the field and has received extensive industry support for their award-winning machine learning and artificial intelligence systems.

7C Laboratories was tasked with conducting initial market research, brand strategy, marketing strategy, collateral development, localization and business development in North America. As such, 7C conducted multiple qualitative and quantitative market studies focused on targeting the extensive industrial, manufacturing and logistics sectors both in Canada and the United States. In addition to this, a brand audit and a subsequent brand strategy guideline was produced to ensure resonance within the North American market.

These two initiatives have set the groundwork for nyris’ North American operations and have led to prominent partnerships with leading producers in the raw material, material processing, medical and manufacturing industries.

7C was also tasked with creating, operating and managing nyris’ North American sales pipeline, developing their overall NA sales strategy and acting as the frontline for inbound and outbound lead generation. With this, 7C has been able to achieve a 32.4% conversion rate from cold prospects to warm leads and has processed more than 2,600 prospects since August of 2019.
7C also produces weekly and monthly sales reports for the nyris executive team.

To support these sales initiatives, 7C has also produced a range of localized marketing collateral, resources and proof-of-concept applications with our in-house design and development team. One of these proof-of-concepts was informed by our overall marketing strategy and was used to secure funding for one of nyris’ most significant research projects to-date.

Going forward, 7C intends to roll out nationwide PR campaigns with in-house partners Matte PR in both Canada and the U.S. These campaigns will be accompanied with new initiatives, such as CRM development, analytics analysis, trade-show preparation, media training, PR toolbox development and much more.

Four Fifty Five is a Toronto-made brand that offers ties, pocket squares, cufflinks and more to fit any style. Four Fifty Five has been featured in The Globe & Mail. Style Democracy, Rad Mag, and BlogTO, also having gone on to partner with Shelterbox, Pump Couture, and Ryerson University.

7C completely refreshed Four Fifty Five’s online presence, introducing bright colours, modern graphics and a more approachable, gender neutral feel. After polishing and relaunching Four Fifty Five’s Shopify site, 7C went on to develop and lead the marketing and brand strategy, directing multiple seasonal campaigns, photoshoots, email blasts, advertising campaigns, and social media content generation through all major channels. 7C also designed several products within Four Fifty Five’s line, including custom commissioned accessories.

7C’s design and strategy work helped increase visibility for Four Fifty Five, repositioning them as a local, affordable eCommerce accessories brand. From frequent social posts to retro-referenced graphics, we reframed their marketing strategy to reach a wider audience and rebooted the company as a whole.

Blondies pizza is Toronto’s newest pizza joint darling from The Food Dudes, known for its iconic pink polka-dotted branding – down to the boxes, buildings, and ovens.

Blondies’ flagship Leslieville location opened August 2018, rapidly expanding to open second and third locations – the newest one in Toronto’s Ossington strip.

7C created a brand new website for the launch of Toronto’s favourite new pizza joint, matching their funky retro-cool pink branding and iconography with a bright, no-fuss design fit for the modern web. Subtle animations and parallax scrolling are optimized for both desktop and mobile, making for a great user experience no matter how you choose to order pizza.

7C was also tasked with the direction of food photography, ensuring that the ‘za was picture pixel perfect for signs, posters, menus, and social media. Additionally, custom digital menu boards were developed for the Commerce Court location.

The Toronto Entertainment District is home to the tourism centre of Canada. Spanning much of the downtown core of Toronto and including landmarks such as The Rogers Centre and the CN Tower, millions of people flock to the area as the primary place to go when visiting Canada. This BIA is also home an immense variety of businesses, galleries, and restaurants which are frequented by both tourist and locals alike.

Part of a joint-campaign between the BIA and Matte PR, 7C was tasked with stripping back the Entertainment District’s image and documenting and promoting the lesser-known elements of the region. With this, we’ve been capturing the best hidden secrets, businesses and flavours around as part of the #hiddenBIA campaign, highlighting the unique history of the area and the people who live, work and play in the centre of it all.

Subsidiary of Modular Farms Co., Modular Farms Australia aims to provide the industry leading technology developed by their parent company to the Oceanic region. Tuned for diverse climates of Australia and Asia and designed to serve isolated communities and large-scale farming operations, the Australian Modular Farming System is a series of container farms and add-ons that are highly versatile and infinitely scalable.

7C has worked alongside Modular Farms Co. and Modular Farms Australia to bring the brand to the Queensland region, assisting in the establishment, launch and growth of the brand during Q1 and Q2 of 2018. Leading the primary marketing strategy, brand strategy and content generation, 7C worked closely along partner agency Matte PR and local Sydney-based AC Agency. Modular Farms Australia is now well-established in the region as an industry leader, garnering attention both nationally and internationally across some of the largest and most reputable media outlets on their side of the world. Appearances include ABC, The Courier Mail, The Weekend Edition and The Fifth Estate.

To see more, click the link below:

Modular Farms Australia

The Food Dude’s secondary catering company, Pantry, had began to gain some serious traction, both for its catering offerings and its lunch and dinner grab-and-go based restaurants when they first contacted 7C. Looking for a web platform that could both process entire catering orders and provide all the relevant information necessary to support the restaurants while also staying within the very tight tolerances of the The Food Dudes’ brand guidelines was a challenge 7C was excited to undertake.

The new website contains an eCommerce based catering platform, interactive menu items modeled after the in-restaurant serving stations and a versatile back-end designed to interact with a custom CRM also being designed and developed by 7C Laboratories.

To see more, click the link below:
Pantry by The Food Dudes

Modular Farms Co. is a leading manufacturer of container farms and vertical farming equipment. Unlike much of their competition, Modular Farms Co. has opted out of creating farms inside shipping containers, and instead designed a stand-alone solution that could work in a commerical setting and provide the optimal plant health and yield necessary for any farmer to create a profitable venture. In addition to this, Modular Farms Co. also has a line of “modules” (hence the name) that can connect to their primary unit to give the farm additional capabilities.

Modular Farms first reached out to 7C while working on a joint project with us to promote sustainability and urban agriculture. Looking for a complete marketing solution, 7C has and continues to provide Modular Farms fully integrated marketing solutions. From PR, to web development and overall brand strategy, 7C has been closely ingrained in the company’s story and has recently expanded its services to Modular Farms Australia, a subsidiary of the Canadian brand.

7C also works closely with partnered PR company and close collaborators, Matte PR, which provides global liaison and PR representation for both Modular Farms Co. and Modular Farms Australia. Since then, Modular Farms has appeared in publications such as The Toronto Star, Fairchild TV, Metro News and has also participated in a collaboration with another one of 7C’s clients, The Food Dudes.

To see more, click the link below:

Modular Farms Co.

Considered a leader in the field of the compounded medicines and one of the fastest growing businesses in the GTA, Concession Medical approached 7C with the intention of expanding from the small-scale pharmacy-like image that they had generated over the last 20 years of operations in favor of entering the market as both a leader in prescription compounded medicines and manufacturer of over-the-counter variants of their most popular medicines.
Such an undertaking essentially required establishing an entirely new business from the ground-up. 7C Laboratories took on the task of beginning this, establishing the building blocks for the new brand and company image. A multi-faceted project, 7C has begun to lay the brickwork for branding, packaging, media planning, product distribution planning, marketing, advertising, market and audience research, web development and everything else in between. As of the end of 2017, 7C has completed a total overhaul over the company’s many brands and websites and has conducted several rounds of market research to begin the process of getting Concession products on shelves nationwide.

STRATEGIC POSITIONING

When 7C was approached, the Concession Medical team was faced with a predicament that had begun to box in their growth. Their brand had begun to grow exponentially and some of their more popular compounded medicines had begun to gain traction in doctor’s offices across the country and internationally. The problem, however, was that given current Canadian advertising and marketing laws, compounded medicines cannot legally be advertised publically as they are not deemed “manufactured”, which would lift some of these restrictions. Concession had realized that without formal marketing there was no way to truly solidify their products placements in doctor’s offices and their growth would be capped by how far word-of-mouth would spread.
Jesse Brito and his research team devised a strategy that would lift these restrictions as well as allow for potentially another, even more profitable stream of revenue than that of Concession’s original product line. As Concession had manufacturing capabilities in Canada, Jesse suggested creating an over-the-counter variant of their most popular medicines, sharing a similar name and brand identity as their compounded medicines. This would essentially allow for mass, large scale marketing both nationally and internationally that would carry the brands name, resonating with medical professionals via brand trust established from the marketing of the over-the-counter variant. As a multimillion-dollar undertaking for Concession, the plan was radical and involved, however both parties agreed to pursing it further.

BRAND PREPARATION

In order to even consider the strategy, set forth as viable, it was clear that major preparation would have to be done to the Concession brand as a whole. Work began on new branding packages for both the medicines and the company at large, initial wire-framing has begun for a new web-presence smaller marketing assets such as packaging etc. have begun design-preparation stages. All of these aspects have been done in order to project Concession as both a new force in the industry, yet still a veteran in medicine and patient care overall. These efforts have been done in order to have Concession products both seem in place on store shelves yet stand out over their competitors.

FURTHER MARKETING

One of the most notable troupes in pharmaceutical and medical advertising is their rampant use of visual clichés of happy families in sunny suburbs and similar imagery. Concession made it clear that they wanted to take a bold stance away from these troupes, thus our original round of commercial pitches included five highly narrative driven stories that sought to engage the viewer by first presenting themselves as an intense or emotional movie commercial that eventually revealed an underlying theme making it clear that the commercial was an allusion to the medicine advertised itself. It was important that the actual thematic weight was never lost throughout the ad to ensure that it remained engaging throughout, hence no concept possessed any clear reveal that the ad was a ruse rather than an actual movie, even though the products we’re still shown and their names made clear. This, would in-turn, leave the viewer with a lasting impression, and hopefully one that would make them seek further information on the product.

Together, Concession and 7C remain confident in our beliefs that true success comes from the willingness to take risks. Maintaining a strong working relationship, 7C looks forward to the completion of this project and the expansion into the medical industry.

Allen Private Wealth Group has been supporting clients and their financial goals for the last 25 years. Their success has been built on the foundation of three pillars: responsibility, integrity and transparency. When they first reached out to 7C to develop a new website, we knew that these values would be the focal point to build the rest of the experience around.

With a primarily older demographic, we used our previous experience working with wealth management firms to create a simple yet beautiful design, with easy to use interactions and a wealth of information to assist in conveying brand expertise and transparency.

The finished product has now become a portal for their clients to interact with the firm and supports the “HollisWealth MyPortfolio+” platform. The website also contains a wealth of team, firm and services information. Allen Private Wealth intends to carry on the success of this website by providing new digital experiences by 7C for their clients in the future.

To see more, click the link below:

Allen Private Wealth

When prominent tax lawyer Nathan Wright first approached 7C, he was looking for a partner in establishing his new firm within a short time-frame. 7C took up the challenge, developing a brand from the ground up, a new website and general web presence and multi-channel natural and paid advertising.

The brand was designed to hark on Nathan and his team’s abilities to provide a full range of tax and estate legal solutions, while also retaining visual elements from his previous firm and the general decor of his office. The results is a versatile and timeless logo-mark and a distinctly unique brand name that breaks the mold of partner-named firms. With ample collateral included, and several rounds of reserve photo content developed to be on hand, Nathan and his team can focus on serving his clients rather than ensuring brand presentation quality.

In addition, the website was developed to compete in the highly competitive search rankings of Toronto tax lawyers while also providing access the very developed library of tax law reading material that Nathan and his team had and continues to create. With separate targeted landing pages developed as well, Spectrum has also fully utalized multiple channels of advertising to further compete with the very dense downtown market.

Spectrum has already begun to become a notable name in the area, and we look forward to continuing to be part of their journey.

To see more, click the link below:

Spectrum Lawyers

Tredd Insurance Brokers is a leading corporate and commercial boutique insurance provider, specifically serving the oil & gas and shipping industries. Their well established history of success and a strong unifying mission statement has brought them to where they are today, and as such, when they approached 7C to overhaul their web presence, those ideals we’re intrinsic to the design direction.

7C Laboratories produced websites for the main Tredd brand as well as their insurance program, Insurance for Welders. In addition to this, marketing collateral was produced for future use. Taking a non-traditional approach to navigation, the main website primarily scrolls to the right, with additional content following vertically; a nod both to their non-traditional approach to insurance provision and overhaul brand philosophy.

In addition to this the Insurance for Welders site features a complete application system with a dynamic PDF and signature capture system, greatly improving the ability to process incoming requests for the firm and generally increasing efficiency overall.

To see more, click the links below:

Tredd Insurance Brokers

Insurance for Welders

7C was invited to capture The Food Dude’s annual charity event, Block Party, which brings together art, music and food to create one of the most exciting events of the year. Block Party IV was no exception to this. Hosted at the legendary Toronto Event Centre, this year’s Block Party was filled with performances and entertainment like only The Food Dudes can do.
Capturing the night as whole, 7C attempted to capture the experience to provide a re-cap video worthy of such an event.

To see more, click the link below:

The Food Dudes Block Party IV

Over the span of a year, 7C followed Ryerson’s International Hyperloop Team (RIHT) on their journey to create the first ever deployable wheel system for Hyperloop technology. RIHT, a student team founded after the release of Elon Musk’s white-paper, consisted of a handful of Ryerson Aerospace Engineering students, with the end-goal of attending the first ever SpaceX Hyperloop competition. Focusing on developing a singular, well polished design rather than an entire Hyperloop pod, the team went on to win the Subsystems Innovation Award at the SpaceX Hyperloop Design Weekend and was a prominent exhibitor at the competition hosted at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne California.

Representing 7C’s largest pro-bono job to-date, 7C offered its complete range of services in exchange for a sponsorship position with the team. Inspired by the project, Jesse, President of 7C Laboratories, ended up joining the team several months in as well. From branding, web presence, PR, content production and much more, 7C was side-by-side with the team the entire way, including traveling with them to the competition in California. The work 7C accomplished with the team later lead to projects with Safran, Cadenas PARTsolutions, and Ryerson University itself, as well as appeared in the Toronto Star and Daily Planet.

Since 1997, Standard Tool & Mold has been providing the highest caliber of injection molds. Driven by a mission statement to provide the highest level of customer service and support, Standard Tool & Mold approached 7C to produce a web presence that provided a wealth of industry information and purchasing details to provide their leads with important industry insights and expertise before even picking up the phone.

A truly global company, 7C was tasked with creating an experience that would be equally at home in Canada and China. Featuring complete breakdowns STD’s industries, services and capabilities, the primary objective was to provide an easy to use browsing experience while maintaining a level of content necessary to support purchasing in this technical and complex field. In addition to this, the site had to support easy CAD file uploads for quoting and estimating, which was tied to STD’s internal FTP.

7C’s production team also had the opportunity to travel to STD to collect a wealth of video and photo content to support both the website and future marketing materials.

To see more, click the link below:
Standard Tool & Mold

7C was approached by The Canadian Association of Independent Life Brokerage Agencies (CAILBA) to take their previous website, which they had felt was misrepresenting their operation and seemed too much in the vain of a template site, and create something truly original and equally functional, serving as the face and storefront and backend of their entire business. This required that we construct several completely unique subsystems in order to meet the needs of such a specific operation and clientele.

The results included a truly epic website in scale that operates more in the vain of five websites under one banner, with features never seen before, such as a 7C original algorithmic-based responsive system that has since become a staple in our digital arsenal. As per usual with almost all 7C sites, custom photography and graphical content was created for the purpose of this project.

CAILBA’s primary business relies on membership fees paid by several different types of vendors; these memberships include access to the industry renowned Compliance Toolbox, updates on industry news & CAILBA lobbying initiatives, access to several regulatory bodies, and ticket purchasing abilities to their annual conference. Keeping this in mind, our team realized that we would essentially be constructing a news website, an e-commerce platform, a social platform and a general information site; to top it off, the site also had to be bi-lingual.

With this in mind, our team set out to create to design pitches, one a more traditional format and another that would push boundaries of what was possible inside a web browser. To our excitement, CAILBA selected the latter, which strayed very little from the final design live at their domain now.

ALGRORITHMICAL RESPONSIVE DESIGN:

The most prominent design aspect of this site serves as both the overarching theme and the technical powerhouse of the entire project. Classic responsive design techniques, the act of adjusting a website’s content based on the window size, is done via predefined break-points, where the developer will then insure that the content is in its correct place at those breakpoints. Creative lead Jesse Brito envisioned a new method of achieving responsive pages without human intervention that would result in beautiful looking pages regardless of their size. The result was a tiled pattern prevalent on the homepage and several other pages that automatically find their most preferred space on the page given the overall size of that page. This causes blocks to animate and slide around the page when transitioning screen sizes in a highly engaging manner that leaves each user with a different experience and page arrangement without ever compromising the readability or flow of the content.

BI-LINGUAL:

Potentially the greatest challenge of this website involved effectively creating two sites to serve two separate languages as well as present only the relevant member-based information given that language. A colossal site in its own right, doubling and localizing the project was an undertaking that involved several translators as well as some of our French-speaking team members to work closely alongside the client and our development team. Optimization of the site due to its size was also an essential process.

E-COMMERCE POS, SOCIAL PLATFORM, NEWS PLATFORM AND BEYOND

 As CAILBA sought to streamline their entire operation through their website, special care had to be taken to ensure that potential members would be able to effectively sign-up for a membership using valid information, complete a large transaction over the web without human intervention, be able to access their account as well as interact with other members, receive and view news as it was published, use a separate payment processor to purchase tickets to the CAILBA National Conference and to do all of the above in the language of their choice.

The above was accomplished via cross-referencing information from national databases, double and sometimes triple security verification, payment processing techniques allowing seemingly infinite combinations of payment methods, and a completely custom member interface developed in conjunction with aMember.

FURTHER MARKETING INITIATIVES

7C’s relationship with CAILBA is on-going, and includes several graphic design initiatives surrounding their 2017 National Conference, as well as introducing their operation to automated email marketing.

CAILBA’s entire operation has been streamlined into a nearly autonomous web application housed inside a seemingly information-only based website. This has resulted in unprecedented efficiency for CAILBA’s selling procedure, allowing their staff to continue to focus on creating positive change in the industry.

To see more, click the link below:

Canadian Association of Life Insurance Brokerages

7C was approached by Orlando Corporation owned Canadian Tire Motorsport Park to provide both aerial photography and videography for a series of advertisements and promotional videos they produced internally. Consisting of a two day shoot, 7C had the opportunity to photograph and video all five of the park’s major assets, including their three tracks, recreational center and driver training center. These videos we’re produced alongside continual 7C collaborator 3Sixty Video, with 7C Creative Producer Ross Bennett at the helm.

With the opportunity to film in car and on the ground as well, 7C provided CTMP additional collateral outside of the scope of this project for future videos as well.

We we’re approached by boutique Wealth Management firm Gordon Wealth Management to help bring their services to a market that has been drastically unrepresented in the financial planning sector as a whole. With this, 7C established a strategy to tap into the young executive market in the GTA via strengthening their already existing image established from a focus on print and word-of-mouth, as well as create an online identity and ad strategy from the ground-up.

The results included four separate market research reports to hone target audiences over test-periods of 1 and 2 months respectively, print adverts and marketing material distributed strategically from aforementioned research results, a social media marketing strategy and the management of their accounts, a highly dynamic and full-featured website with both photography and videography conducted in-house and an online ad strategy with creative included.

Notable components include a custom user-controlled web application that broke down the monotony of the common listed item format, web elements that use the gyroscopic properties of a user’s phone to add dynamism to graphical assets, and market research results that have adjusted the firm’s overall sales focus.

Wealth management is an industry often characterized by its seemingly dry appeal to the average consumer, often holding a negative connotation as being boring in the same vain as a doctor’s visit. This is in no small part related to the frequently lacking websites and online presences that even industry leaders possess. Internal research concluded that a large portion of the industry saw their web presence as a low priority and would not consider updating their website in any term less than 5 years and would consider a reasonable period to update their website to be 10 years after the previous iteration. These metrics are substantially lower than that of most industries, and provided context to the overwhelming amount of retirement planning and retired client basis Harbourfront had amassed although they greatly desired to pursue the growing young executive market fostered by the increased tech-presence in Toronto.

After conducting four separate market research reports, 7C approached Harbourfront with a strategy that would bring their website to the foreground and turn it into their most valuable marketing tool. This approach was based on the principle that appealing entirely to a younger market risked alienating their current client demographics, and instead a sounder approach would be to create an interactive web experience simple and elegant enough to coincide with traditional web interactions with a visual identity that remained professional yet approachable that could effectively direct a user to the relevant information for their demographic.

GOING MOBILE:

A critical part in achieving the requirements set above was to bring the Harbourfront brand to the mobile sphere; something not yet explored in their operation and a rarity in the industry as whole. Effectively, two separate versions of the website we’re designed with responsiveness functions managing all screen sizes in between full screen and mobile screen. The mobile website was designed with the younger executive market in-mind, as both internal and external research had shown that market trends towards mobile interaction over desktop was primarily driven by younger age groups. In order to make the mobile version of the website its own fixed asset, several smaller functions of the design we’re altered that would add a level of dynamism normally not seen on mobile websites; the most notable of which was creating functionality on several assets on the site that would react and move based on the gyroscopic response of a user’s phone, thus allowing them to interact with the website in 3D, appose to interacting with the site in the same way one interacts with a newspaper. Great care was also taken into creating animations that would be functional on mobile, which also rare in most designs.

THE 6 STEP PROCESS:

Harbourfront Wealth Management operates on a distinct service delivery system that they refer to as “The 6 Step Process”. This tool was determined to be very effective as a lead generator and added much needed context to the actual service of wealth management. 7C sought to bring the 6 Step Process to the forefront of Harbourfront’s website, as the previous iteration of it was displayed in a simple spreadsheet, often buried by other irrelevant content. An interactive web application was constructed and imbedded into the website. This application operated much like a slideshow, however also allowed for increased depth by providing branching paths based on a user’s inputs and selections. This system was critical in taking one of Harbourfront’s most effective selling tools to a wider, more accessible market online.

FURTHUR MARKETING INITIATIVES: 

Part of the strategy established by 7C involved further marketing and advertising incentives that would coincide with the new brand image and target markets established from the extensive updates to the Harbourfront website.

In addition to standard digital advertising such as display ads, adword pushes and social media advertising, special care was taken towards introducing Harbourfront to automated client acquisition techniques. This included automated targeted email systems, online client confirmations and digital delivery systems. The introduction of email marketing to Harbourfront found great success as it provided a method to utilize digital advertising in way that would not alienate nor seem unusual to some of Harbourfront’s elderly clientele, while still remaining professional and engaging across the rest of their client basis. Automation of this process also saved countless working hours from the staff as follow-up emails and happy birthdays etc. we’re now streamlined into a totally hands-off system.

Furthermore, this refocus was also brought into their physical marketing initiatives via updated stationary, flyers, business cards, and a slew of other marketing material that reflected a more polished and refined brand image.

Harbourfront Wealth Management underwent a critical revamp of their capabilities, effectively allowing their boutique team to reduce the amount of time focused on prospecting by generating sound leads automatically from web traffic. Harbourfront saw a 400% increase in web traffic with a 38% increase in new traffic via mobile browsers.

To see more, click the link below:

Harbourfront Gordon Wealth

Amstedam Brewing Co. approached Rene Gibson with the request of several advertisements be made for their local eatery and pub, the Amsterdam Brewhouse. Constructing a campaign surrounding the showcase of the individual dishes that the restaurant offered, Rene and team saw an opportunity to expand the utility of these advertisements. By ensuring that each dish was differentiated enough yet also approachable and familiar to the average consumer, it was possible to create a list of Amsterdam beer pairings related to said dishes, which we’re purposefully selected to be simple enough that consumers could create dishes at home that would work with the already existing beer pairings, thus expanding the marketability of both the restaurant and the much more accessible Amsterdam products.

Produced in a period of rapid expansion of international scale for the local brewery, these advertisements marked a critical point in the company’s history and was at the forefront of one of their most important marketing initiatives. Using several 7C team members and Creative Producers as the production team, Rene set forth on developing two TV-run capable ads for Amsterdam’s Crusier and Amsterdam’s Radler brews. Using a blend of vintage film equipment and modern film techniques such as aerial cinematography, Rene attempted to blend the rustic appeal of the Amsterdam brand alongside sweeping imagery of Toronto landmarks and skylines. Careful attention was taken towards ensuring the general aesthetic and tone would resonate with Amsterdam’s younger target demographics. In order to ensure that the audience was kept in mind, imagery related to community and the youthful bliss of summer is repeated heavily across both spots.

Cardon Rehabilitation & Medical Equipment Ltd. is one of the country’s leading manufacturers of medical equipment and tables. With over 35 years of experience, Cardon has repeatedly disrupted the market with innovative, high quality products that have pushed limits of customization, functionality and form of treatment tables, which lends to the global success of specifically their CTT (Cardon Treatment Table) line of products.

Cardon approached 7C to conduct preliminary product concepts for adaptive add-ons to their CTT line in order to add more versatility to their already most produced table-base. The results included a new retractable middle-section pad extension system and a complete overhaul of the CTT to serve women’s health and gynecology needs. After the completion of these designs, 7C was asked to produce three promotional videos and several instructional videos, highlighting the CTT line, the Cosmos 100 Hi-Lo massage table and the neurological and bariatric line of tables. Over the

course of a two-day shoot, all three videos we’re produced, drawing direct parallels to high-end automobile commercials and tech products.

To see more, click the links below:

http://Nothing Else is Built Like a Cardon

Cosmos 100 Hi-Lo Massage Table

Neurological & Bariatric Tables