Cocoon Branding Inc.

CHALLENGE
The Rainbow Society is a charitable institution here in Winnipeg. Founded in 1983, they were the first wish granting organization in Canada helping children with life threatening illnesses and their families. They were looking to revitalize their brand in order to increase their relevance.

SOLUTION
The new name – The Dream Factory – more clearly represents both the function and the spirit of the organization. The airship logo design was inspired by the organization’s new positioning line: “Sometimes kids deserve to get carried away.” The Dream Factory helps kids forget about their illness – even just for a moment – and encourages them to get carried away in the anticipation of having their dream come true, the experience itself, and the memories they will keep with them when they return to their routine of doctors, treatments, and hospital visits.

When we develop a brand strategy, we work to peel away all the functional benefits of a brand and discover the emotional purpose behind what they do. For The Dream Factory, that greater emotional purpose is to create a sense of joy – and we used that to help us design the brand identity, values, and messaging.

Watch the brand launch video

“Working through this rebranding project with Cocoon was wonderful. They really challenged us to explore our organization in depth and to look at our brand from all angles, involving all stakeholders in the process. Because of this, the end result – The Dream Factory – is something that represents us perfectly, and it wasn’t just a typical solution. When the new brand was revealed to us, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room – it connected so powerfully on an emotional level. We saw immediately how the the brand could be rolled out and what it could become.”

- Grace Thomson, executive director of The Dream Factory

CHALLENGE
First Capital has become a highly respected wealth management firm with prestigious clients across Canada. Their brand was never fully developed and needed to be more clearly defined and expressed.

SOLUTION
The new brand for First Capital is based on their focused investing approach, keying into their total customization philosophy by creating completely unique solutions for their customers.

The identity highlights the new brand and represents a focused approach along with a totally unique experience.

Taking inspiration from prisms and organic shell formations, the symbol gives the new brand focus and energy. Like a fingerprint, the symbol has a totally unique look and rhythm that creates a youthful and open feel by keeping the strength of the overall shape. The type was created to be dynamic, open, and confident.

The overall brand has a dynamic power that encapsulates the energy of First Capital.

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CHALLENGE
The Lake of the Woods Child Development Centre outgrew their name. Their services now reached far beyond the Lake of the Woods and their clients included families and individuals of all ages.

SOLUTION
Their old brand did not truly represent who they were and who they were becoming. The new name and identity – Firefly – represent the openness, warmth, and guiding nature of the organization. Their new brand is natural and warm, but confident and strong in its approach.

The identity is based on a bouquet of light. The three elements represent the three areas that Firefly focuses on: physical, emotional and developmental. These elements overlap to represent one cohesive unit that comes together to help a family.

The typeface was designed to be both strong and stable, but its gentle curves keep a warm and friendly voice.

The brand is unified throughout all of its services, even though there are huge differences in the style of each offering. The use of a unique colour palette for each service allows each to have its own feel underneath the overall brand.

RESULTS
The new Firefly name and brand have been quickly adopted internally, helping to unify employees that had previously been feeling segregated. The new brand will become the first point of contact for families in need of support in western Ontario.

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CHALLENGE
With the rebrand of CURVE 94.3, we helped create a truly unique format in Winnipeg radio. Unfortunately, the music mix did not fit into a familiar genre. We needed to communicate this unconventional mix to our target audience — a combination of females and males, aged 28-32.

Vote on the GOOD Stuff Campaign

SOLUTION
To communicate what was being played on the station, we boiled it down to the “GOOD” Stuff. This new description was used in advertising and integrated on-air.

An online/text voting campaign encouraged people to vote on everything that is good. Not limited to just music, listeners could vote on anything form cupcakes to Jay-Z. Outdoor media during the campaign  encouraged listeners to vote via text messaging or through a micro site. Real-time results showed which items were voted “GOOD” that particular week. Voting was also integrated with the station’s Facebook page. Prizes (called “A Bag of The Good Stuff”) were awarded every week to the voting public and would often include tickets to bands that were voted “GOOD”.

Listeners could nominate their own “GOOD” stuff to be voted on. An archived list of what was voted “GOOD” and what was voted “NOT GOOD” was kept to ensure “NOT GOOD” choices were not allowed on the station. Nickleback was voted “NOT GOOD” a record three times.

RESULTS
Comparing data from September 2007 and September 2009, the station grew in all key demographics. Listenership among Adults 18-34 was up 59.2% — a increase of 24.9% in female listeners and an impressive 152.5% in male listeners.

Listeners could nominate their own "GOOD" stuff to be voted on.

Voting was also integrated with the station's Facebook page.

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CHALLENGE
The Christmas shopping season is highly anticipated, but it seems to fly by every year. It is the time of year when marketers are shooting in every direction to get the attention of consumers. We needed Kildonan Place Shopping Centre’s holiday messages and media to connect with a feeling that consumers are already having – that the holidays are going to be here before you know it – and encourage customers not to leave everything to the last minute. Our goal was to drive traffic into the shopping centre over the holidays.

SOLUTION
We created the KP Holiday Countdown – a fully integrated campaign gently reminding customers to get ready for the holidays, and telling them exactly how much time they had left (to the second).

We used traditional media with an advent style billboard, closed captioning sponsorship, and a radio campaign that updated daily. We also integrated our messaging with on-air reads of the “official KP Countdown Clock.” Online, we created a Facebook app that enabled people to keep track of the days, as well as a countdown clock on various media sites, and allowed users to integrate the clock into their own blog or website.

The KP Holiday Countdown campaign was launched with a giant projection of the countdown clock that utilized the wall space on the exterior of the mall, and remained there for the entire run of the campaign. The magical countdown clock seemed to come from inside the walls of the mall, keeping track of the time to the second. Another animated clock was inside the mall across from Santa himself. These clocks were more than just a countdown: KP has a great social media customer base, and to reward these loyal patrons we enabled them to send personal holiday greetings through the KP Facebook and Twitter pages. These messages were then integrated into the countdown clocks, spreading them not only on the Facebook page, but in a tangible form as well, for all to see. The greetings also pulled more people to our social media platforms.

RESULTS
Our countdown clocks were well received by our customers as well as media partners. The on-air reads of the clocks became a conversation point for the announcers, and it seemed no one could forget how much time they had left to do their holiday shopping (even our Facebook profile pic became a countdown). This projection was the first of its kind in the city and was seen by all who traveled near the area.

The launch of our own Free Santa campaign in 2009 blew away customer traffic numbers that year, yet we still managed to have an increase of 10,785 this holiday season. The holiday season can be crazy, but we hope that at least a few of our customers didn’t leave everything until the last minute.