Prior to founding Make Hay, I spent several years in print production and publishing, as a typographer and graphic designer, and then 10 years as a print and broadcast journalist. Based in Toronto, I wrote for national and international media, including Chatelaine, Maclean’s, CBC Radio, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Creativity and Strategy are my personal strengths – and the two pillars of this business. I am committed to helping you engage with your audiences in meaningful ways using for example, social media, advertising, sponsorships, websites, public and media relations.
Community engagement and community building are also important values in our work. Make Hay has experience in working with both business and nonprofit organizations, especially with social enterprise development. I am an active member of several communities, contributing to local, regional and cyber organizations and volunteer boards to foster community economic development, especially through the arts.
I hold an undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto, University College and I am a member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), Toronto chapter, and the Canadian Community Economic Development (CCED) Network.
A rural district needs more doctors. With a volunteer recruiting committee attending physician recruitment fairs with only a photocopied and stapled “hand-out,” the decision was made to spend the small budget on some strong creative.
Instead of selling the “four seasons fabulous” and superior “quality of life” that every rural area lays claim to, we focused on the quirks and charms of country life. We created a personality and demonstrated it through our creative. Great results and great legs – the brochure was viable, with minor updates, for many years.
Long Distance
Competition rules changed the playing field for independent telco Bruce Municipal Telephone System (BMTS) when it was able to offer long distance services to its local phone service customers.
The challenge was that the offer required customers to actively “opt in” – signing a card to choose BMTS as their long distance provider (over, you know, that big girl)
.
Make Hay developed the creative concept for the campaign – ‘Long Distance Just Got Closer.’ We wrote the creative brief that directed our own creative and which was used by other agencies (radio and print) to guide theirs. A strong creative concept rolled out in a variety of applications including newspaper ads, direct mail, posters and bill stuffers making BMTS a top of mind choice – and reinforcing the ease and benefit of opting in.
Kimbercote Farm is a retreat centre increasingly involved in environmental demonstrations and education. Working with the co-directors and the board, Make Hay followed through on the details for a successful Sustainable Energy Event that included five off-site Workshops over two months and a two day Conference at Kimbercote Farm.
With limited financial resources we used a dual approach: Public Relations and Visual Bang. The PR efforts leveraged Kimbercote’s good name in the “green” networks – spreading the word and the promotional materials – and we created a high impact graphic design to use on all print/web promotional materials.
Traditional marketing and media methods worked alongside viral methods to produce excellent local and regional media coverage, successful attendance and a satisfied funder.
A fun, two-fold project – create a new identify for a division of the regional YMCA and launch it with a print campaign.
Employment & Community Services needed to be distinct from the more familiar sweaty Y. The brand needed to claim distinct territory as a fresh, friendly, accessible service.
Eye-catching creative was presented for a print and outdoor campaign. The new identity carries the strong and positive YMCA corporate brand yet is distinct from it, and from other employment services. The new logo was rolled out in a first-of -its kind print and outdoor campaign that employed friendly “pets” to sell job search and change.
Best Western Weddings
Talk about a wedding make-over !
We turned Cinderella into a gala-ready gal with a beautiful wedding package make-over for this Best Western hotel.
This is all about the Before and After. Previously they were using an artless desk-topped brochure with extra copied pages – such as the seasonal menu changes – handed to the bride-to-be on separate sheets, perhaps stapled together. A bit ramshackle for the big day!
Make Hay put the emphasis on a beautiful “bride-style” presentation folder – elegant and slim, with a smooth satin texture, the folder easily accommodates similarly designed “insert cards” that can be updated without changing the whole package. A simple, elegant and beautiful solution – what more could a wedding want!
An evening of poetry performance in support of adult literacy, Make Hay developed a theme replete with sexual allusion – and rolled out a promotional strategy that included media relations and a red-hot poster design.
We coordinated all the details of the evening – booking performers, liaising with the local adult literacy organization, negotiating the venue, sound system and music, food and drink refreshments.
Additionally, Make Hay organized fundraising activities and ice-breaking entertainments setting the stage for a vivacious crowd of literary fun seekers to enjoy a memorable experience for a great cause.
In the last few years, we have worked with the MHA to develop a strong and consistent brand identity that is reinforced internally and with external stakeholders. Working with the senior management team and the board of directors, Make Hay provides communications planning and PR consulting along with writing and designing marketing communications materials, including the MHA website.
Make Hay produces all of the marketing communication tools for this multi-site organization – designing and writing a range of brochures, the staff newsletter, an annual community report, plus recruitment materials and trade show displays. Make Hay has expanded and refined the media relations activities at the MHA, enhancing media opportunities and writing media releases and speaking notes for board members and senior managers.
One recent focus is on internal communication as the development and enhancement of an intranet becomes pivotal.
Flesherton needed a new website. But a number of factors were impacting on the tiny Chamber of Commerce’s ability to maintain a useful website.
Make Hay developed a two-fold strategy – one that would maintain a member-updated community website and continue to offer the popular online business directory.
The major portion of the website – which provides travel and tourist information, such as hiking and biking trails, and also community arts and business events and news, ongoing Chamber initiatives, meeting minutes and news flashes – was rebuilt on a php platform to allow members to update the site without needing any technical html coding skills.
To maintain an up-to-date business directory, the Flesherton Chamber asked the other area Chamber and the Municipality to become partners in building and maintaining a shared online business directory.
Make Hay Communications designed and produced a seasonal web site for independent teleco BMTS for an annual holiday promotion.
The site, which links to the client’s main site, offers an original illustrated holiday story featuring Erno, the Littlest Elf ™ – and all his friends – and uses animated gifs and sound files to delight visitors. Each year, the site is available for five weeks in November/December and the story is revealed one chapter at a time; one per week. This accessibility coordinates with a radio promotion that daily asks questions about the story, with contestants entering a draw for a home computer system.
The site is engaging and interactive with auto-response answers to letters emailed to Santa and colouring book illustrations. You can press “buttons” to hear seasonal sounds, such as sleigh bells, or enjoy the entire story read aloud.
We love naming: Naming products or services, naming campaigns, naming initiatives, special offers, dogs, boats. And we know that often a campaign or a company benefits from having a tagline as part of its brand identity. We work closely with clients when building a new identity or refreshing an existing one, to ensure an appropriate fit between brand image and organization.
Make Hay developed a successful relationship with Bruce Telecom (formerly BMTS) creating marketing strategies and the graphic identities for the corporation and its sister brands for more than ten years.
In one instance, we created a “bundle campaign” to sell the value of a package of services from this independent telco and ISP. Make Hay developed the One for All! campaign as the Bruce Telecom product offering in this busy category.
Then, with an opportunity to expand full services into an important adjacent territory, we created the You Can Get It! campaign, incorporating the benefits of our bundle. The campaign offered a “free upgrade” to fibre optic cable to all the homes, cottages and businesses in the target area. To market this free upgrade we employed a multi-channel campaign, including media relations, town hall meetings, newspaper ads, door knockers and outdoor media.
Using our skills in writing and information design, Make Hay developed the content and design for an Economic Development Handbook for the Municipality of West Grey. In addition to demographic and statistical information about the region, local business people were interviewed to produce “snapshot” profiles for the Handbook.
The Handbook was a part of the Municipality’s pledge to proactively promote economic development in the area; to foster new business start-ups, to encourage existing businesses to move to West Grey and to promote expansion for existing businesses.
The Handbook is distributed at trade and related shows and mailed to people inquiring about business in West Grey. Additionally, we revised the existing municipal website, using the Handbook content, to make economic development a more prominent feature of the site.
Participation in viable economic development projects doesn’t need to be shut down by limited resources. The Walking Village Initiative was conceived as a way to package and promote what was already a value in the Village of Flesherton – walking.
An initiative of the Chamber of Commerce, the project is designed to fit with the limited human and financial resources of the organization and builds upon two existing natural areas right in the village, along with a close proximity to the Bruce Trail, the longest footpath in Canada. The Walking Village isn’t an event or a walking club, but promotes and enhances the enjoyment of the area on foot – through sidewalk improvements, improved signage and maps, for instance.
The work of building and engaging with a walking community, in the Village and beyond, continues.
