rt Strategy is happy to be sponsoring Startup Weekend – Okanagan. Actually I should say really happy. Or even really, really, really happy.

And we’d like to make three lucky designers or developers just as happy by offering them a free ticket for the event. Each ticket is worth $99 and gives you access to the full three day event (see http://okanagan.startupweekend.org/event/ for outline schedule). You’ll be provided with food & refreshments across the weekend. All you need to do is get yourself to the Kelowna Innovation Centre with your computer!

For a chance to win please complete the questions below. Deadline for entries is Tuesday February 28th at 12 noon. The organising team (Daryl Chymko, Fiona Campbell, Brent Lachman & myself) will select winners that day and inform winners that evening.

Please note that this is open to technically skilled hands-on designers and developers only. We won’t be selecting based only on technical ability, but we are looking for good skill levels in at least some of the following technologies/applications: Adobe Creative Suite, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, JavaScript frameworks (eg. JQuery), PHP, ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion, Objective C, Open GL, XCode, Cocoa Touch, General API Skills, familiarity with frameworks such as WordPress, Drupal or Concrete 5.

Good luck!

Richard Taylor – rt Strategy Inc.

rt Strategy Inc.

rt Strategy is happy to announce our sponsorship of Startup Weekend Okanagan.

Startup Weekend is an intense 54 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application which could form the basis of a credible business over the course of a weekend.

The three-day event takes place on March 2nd to 4th – mainly at the Kelowna Innovation Centre, but with other venues (to be confirmed) also involved.

rt Strategy will be donating Spirit Bear Gin & Vodka to help the closing party flow well.

For more information (and to register) visit http://okanagan.startupweekend.org/

rt Strategy Inc.

Lions are used to represent pride, strength and of course the top of the food chain. Being one of the most widely recognized animal symbols on our planet, it can make a great logo mark. Mostly recognized by the male face, many national flags include the animal to show nobility. In this showcase we managed to gather 50 unique and inspirational lion logo designs for your inspiration. We hope you enjoy!

Note: All rights reserved by original authors.

Word Refuge

CAT

Iron Lion

Holeon

LEOSTAN

SPM

Lionel

MGM-Grand

Kingdom

Whitelion-Consulting

HC-Consulting

Lionheart

AM studio

aslan

Biscon

Venezia

Au Lion d’Or

Vangaard

Saxon

Lionade

Cinqleo

Zion

LuvLeo

Haxed

Xerxes

Lionhead

LyonsDen

Imperius

Terex

Standard Beneficial

WyldLyfe

Sahara

Credilion

Dandylion

Leo3D

Oxipira

Rexav

Lionsquared

Lion Bird

Kingline

Leon Strong

Lion Mark

Lion

Real Men Real Heroes

Safari Bar

Gold Business

Ecolion

GTECH – Information Technology

Wildlife Studio

Anne Klein Lion

We would love to hear your feedback, so please don’t hesitate to comment below. For more inspirational articles don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS-feed and follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter+ Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to comment, and help us spread the word!

rt Strategy Inc.

Noo-Del

Grassini Family Vineyards

Mleko i Miod

Gazelli Cosmetics

5 Olive Oil

Spicebox

Jack Daniel’s Winter Jack

Padre Divino

Vi Novell

Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling

Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slims

Few Spirits

Coromandel Mussel Kitchen

SuperTrash

Bocanegra

Lithuanian Vodka Gold

Stache Chocolate

Sarmentu

Hilliard’s Beer

Ingredients Matter

Glint

Milk Chocolate Bubbles Champagne

Axfood

Alcoholic cider Side Effect

Sapori Trattoria Italiana

Etesian Gold Premium Olive Oil

LongLight

Cobs Popcorn

Suchard Prelude

La Fabbrica

Copperpot Originals

Wildly Delicious Home Brand

rt Strategy Inc.

The History of Marketing: An Exhaustive Timeline [INFOGRAPHIC]

Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game.

At one time, cutting edge technology was limited to just a small segment of the population – and these advancements were slowly rolled out to the masses over decades (and even centuries!). Now, adoption rates are faster than the speed of light and more widespread than ever – and it’s putting control back in the hands of consumers. It’s up to marketers to keep pace in this cluttered, fast-paced world if they want their message heard. Through the lens of marketing history, watch how marketers are succeeding. Take a look at how technology has changed the way marketers do their jobs, how consumers have responded (not always so favorably), and let us know where you think the future of marketing lies. As always, feel free to share and embed at your liesure!

What do you think the future of marketing holds?

rt Strategy Inc.

Graphic designer and artist David Marsh combines two of his interests in a series of prints – Pantone swatch graphics from Adobe Illustrator and classic album covers

“Hip-hop artist Scroobious Pip liked them so much he commissioned me to design his latest album cover and single releases in a similar style,” says Marsh.

rt Strategy Inc.

Social media managers dream of having an audience of millions. We think of how amazing it would be to have legions of engaged fans commenting, liking and sharing our brilliant posts while sitting back and watching the fan base swell.

For some brands, this is a reality.

And while some of these brands gained notoriety long before social media became popular, people followed and liked them on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere for a reason. Clearly, they’re doing something right in the social space, and those of us who don’t manage these brands have plenty to learn from what they’re doing right.

Here are three brands I’ve seen that have the whopping numbers and a solid strategy behind it.

Red Bull – 26.3 million Facebook fans

What we can learn:

• Brevity is the soul of building your fan base;
• Strong content paves the road to becoming a lifestyle brand.

The popular energy drink has become a lifestyle brand, evident from its Facebook presence. What do we mean by a lifestyle brand?

Red Bull has grown to become more than eight ounces of adrenaline proxy. It’s become a badge that signifies—in some circles—that you like extreme things. One way it’s achieved this is through its Facebook page, growing its community well over 26 million fans.

What makes Red Bull’s page so great? Simply put: strong content.

One of Red Bull’s smartest moves in the last couple of years was creating Red Bulletin, a magazine that celebrates all things extreme sports. On top of that, the company produces several videos of people doing anything but drinking Red Bull. They’re launching their bikes through the air, jumping off of high places and going fast on any number of conveyances.

Red Bull uses its many sponsorships and partnerships to find the content, and it does a great job of keeping it relevant. There’s a distinct look and feel to it that says “Red Bull” without having to shove product in people’s faces at every turn.

When you have strong content to post daily, it gives people visiting your page reason to return—and reason not to hide you from their feed.

A brief look at the page reveals that Red Bull generally posts two, maybe (though rarely) three times per day. Usually once in the morning and once in the afternoon. The posts ascribe to an effective tenet in the social space: be brief.

Take a look at the copy on some recent successful posts:

1.19: Laying it all out.
1.21: Yeah, that’s pretty dope.
1.22: Pat Moore gets real.

I could list dozens of such posts that are direct, conversational, to the point and—most importantly—brief.

Brevity gives posts the thing that performers have known for years—leave the audience wanting more. When the audience wants more, fans tend to click, like, comment and share.

Coca-Cola – 38.3 million Facebook fans
What we can learn:

• Give your fans ownership.

Not every brand’s social media presence will have as interesting a backstory as that of Coca-Cola. When you first visit the company’s Facebook page, you’re greeted with a reminder of one of social media’s all-time feel-good stories:

Once upon a time, while searching for the official Coca-Cola Facebook page, a young man named Dusty discovered there wasn’t one. Feeling inspired, he enlisted the help of his friend Michael, found the perfect image of a Coke and created this page. The rest, as they say, is history.

By “history” they mean that the two eventually came to run the page on Coke’s behalf—not exactly rags-to-riches, but interesting nonetheless.

This fan-first mentality continues to drive the page three years later. If you check out Coca-Cola’s wall, the first thing you’ll notice is a lack of posts from the actual company. It’s not that the company isn’t posting—it does so once or twice per day, every day—but when you have 38 million fans and you allow them to post to your wall, they will take over. You have to click “older posts” several times to find a post from Coke.

The result is a virtual shrine to Coke.

Fans are posting odes of love and images of themselves guzzling product. This can only work if it’s in your community’s nature to behave this way. If your page is a place where consumers come to regularly register complaints, it won’t work to be an absentee brand. But if your fans will drive the overwhelmingly positive conversation for you, it’s smart to be a bit more hands-off.

Victoria’s Secret Oreo – 17.3 million and 24.5 million fans, respectively

What we can learn:

• If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Among the top 10 most popular brands on Facebook, no two are more disparate than cookie purveyor Oreo and undergarment supplier Victoria’s Secret. But in terms of social media strategy, the two are actually quite similar.

Oreo’s greatest asset is its recognizable cookie. Victoria’s Secret, meanwhile, can flaunt its world-famous models. Each brand prominently features its greatest asset on its page—and the result is social media success.

Both brands are achieving high engagement rates andseeing a good amount of shares for their posts. (Shares are important because they take your posts and put them on your fans’ wall for their friends to see.) But let’s take a look at why.

Jan. 23 is a perfect example of each brand recognizing its audience and using a photo to create a shareable and easily likeable piece of content.

For Oreo, it’s an adorable fan photo of a little girl sharing Oreos and milk over Skype with (presumably) her father. The copy is simple: “Special moments are meant to be shared … does technology help you share them with the ones you love?” Here, Oreo shares an image that fans can relate to, and you can see from the numbers that it resonated.

The page managers at Victoria’s Secret also know their audience. They posted a photo, albeit less family friendly. Theirs is a photo of runway model Doutzen Kroes with a happy birthday message to her. More than 32,000 people liked that post and more than 1,000 shared it.

The lesson we can take from these approaches is that brands in the social space need to understand why people are willing to publicly connect with them.

For Oreo, it’s most likely families who love the shared experience of dessert and have a nostalgic tie to their cookies. For Victoria’s Secret, it’s women who use their product and men who adore their models.

rt Strategy Inc.

rt Strategy provides event planning and management services as part of a comprehensive service offering to clients. And when you’re undergoing a brand transformation every part of your business/organization has to be open to change.

When we first suggested to Accelerate Okanagan that they should forget throwing a Christmas mixer and throw a New Year Kick Off party instead, we got some odd looks. When we suggested dance music DJs & a rock/ska/punk band the looks got a little odder. This was an organization that was more used to canapes at golf clubs & home by 9pm than partying in old warehouses ’til midnight.

A sold out event and overwhelmingly positive feedback from attendees showed that we’d picked the right strategy!

See our portfolio for event pictures.

rt Strategy Inc.

A press conference, perhaps more than any other event is where you want flawless execution. To ensure Accelerate Okanagan’s official opening, which included both a press conference and a community gathering, was just that – flawless – rt Strategy was asked to plan and manage the event as well as develop invitations for media, and VIPs. Attended by representatives of the Federal Government, Provincial Government, TV, radio, print and online media as well as 80+ Okanagan technology community members the event was a resounding success.

In addition, rt Strategy arranged coverage of the event by two contracted journalists and distribution of their materials – print, audio and video – to media (both local and national) that were unable to attend the Saturday morning event.

View photos from the event in our portfolio.

rt Strategy Inc.

For the last few days, our home page was dedicated to Steve Jobs, with the following message:

20 years and 3 months ago, just a few weeks before heading to law school I took a summer admin job in a design studio.

I came in contact with my first Apple and NeXT computers.

I always stayed late, often past midnight, discovering what these ‘machines’ could do.

They helped me release a creative side that had been completely hidden prior. With much harassing of the creative director, I was offered a role as a junior during the next 3 holiday periods.

Without the influence of Steve Jobs, my life may well have taken a very different path.

My love of design, communications & music would probably have remained a sidebar in my life.

Instead, I have made a career from them, and for that I am truly grateful.

Richard Taylor, Founder | Director – Client Service

Some things just deserve more than a blog post or a couple of tweets – and that was one of two things I chose to do to honour Steve.

The second was to create a simple poster using the original Apple brand colours, a quote from Steve and a HUGE mosaic image created by Charis Tsevis (used with his permission under Creative Commons License). If you’d like to print a poster yourself, you can download the full size file by RIGHT CLICKING here. Bear in mind the file size is 80mb (9216px x 11729px).

RIP Steve – you were, and are, one in 7 billion.

rt Strategy Inc.