Back when we lived in Toronto, the daily walk to my office job involved walking across Union Station, where every week I was bombarded with direct promotional items from big brand companies: bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice, Coke Zero cans, chewing gum, Kleenex, Shampoo & Conditioner sample, bottles of Frank’s Hot . . . → Read More: Mile High Raccoon Promo]]>

Back when we lived in Toronto, the daily walk to my office job involved walking across Union Station, where every week I was bombarded with direct promotional items from big brand companies: bags of Uncle Ben’s Rice, Coke Zero cans, chewing gum, Kleenex, Shampoo & Conditioner sample, bottles of Frank’s Hot Sauce, Aero and Hersey’ chocolate bars, Kellogg’s Fibre Bar, Red Bull & various juice boxes, Colgate toothpaste, Fresh Pasta from Pizza Hut, free prescription glasses (for real: I still wear them everyday!), a rose from CityTV’s The Bachelor and the famous Avocado from Avocados Mexico that made it to this blog (read more here). Here in Ottawa, not so much luck in getting direct promotion stuff! In spite of working right downtown, the only direct promotion I came across before today was around the time Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was released. People dressed in giant playing cards were hanging around Metcalfe and Albert Street, distributing playing cards deck in nice little tin boxes to people who could answer trivia questions about Alice. I  was thrilled, got the question right and proudly brought home the pack of cards… All that to say that today, when I saw a giant blue balloon in the sky and people dressed as air hostess everywhere I felt like I was once again living in a big city and was very excited to see what that was all about. Sadly though, it wasn’t as extraordinary as I expected it to be. Nothing eatable (first disappointment) and nothing useful to me (second disappointment) as unfortunately we don’t have any trip planned to New York, Boston or Chicago. Indeed, the air hostesses were simply distributing cards announcing a Porter promotion: 50% off any flight booked before September 7. Past the initial disappointment, I actually looked at the card that was handed in to me and realized that, as always, Porter had paid a special attention to design and create once again an attractive piece featuring its now famous raccoon.

(Short parentheses here: does someone know why Porter choose a raccoon as their company’s icon? Does that animal have any flying or traveling particularities that I’m unaware of? On this website we can see more branding that the London/Zurich/NYC/Hong Kong/Tokyo-based firm Winkreative created for Porter, but nowhere do they mention the story behind Mr.Porter. As cute as I think it is, I’m still struggling to understand why the airline uses that particular rodent… End of parentheses.)

Back to the card, it’s printed on nice stock and uses a lot of red, which is pretty unusual for Porter who normally primarily uses blue and white in its materials. I guess the stage curtains would not have had the same impact if they hadn’t been red – especially on the Globe and Mail website because, as you can see below, the “Porter party” continued on the web!

It was a well targeted campaign: the main clientele of Porter (executives who travels frequently for business purposes) received the card this morning on their way to work, probably didn’t pay much attention to it and dropped it in their briefcase, got to the office, turned on their computer and visited one of Canada’s most read newspaper website, saw the Porter ads everywhere and remembered the cards they were handed in earlier. Then, if all goes according to the airline’s plan, they gave the card to their secretary/admin assistant for them to book their next flight(s) right away using the discount code… that is of course if they’re well-trained execs wanting to save their business some money! Quite a straightforward marketing approach…

However, I have to mention that there was an annoying little mistake on the back of the card: a bullet is missing between Thunder Bay and Windsor. Not a big deal, probably a very few detailed-oriented people (like me!) noticed it but since I’m sure that Porter paid a premium price to get this card printed you’d expected typos like this to get caught before production. In spite of that oversight, the flyer (no pun intended) will still make it to my collection of pretty printed things to keep.

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

This “lovely” flyer was in our mailbox today, along with a couple of pamphlets from various pizza places and two bulletins about Toronto’s waterfront real estate market (those didn’t even make it to the apartment – they went straight into the recycling bin). This is a very hideous flyer: the colours are awfully bright . . . → Read More: Ugly, but useful.]]>

Spot Talk

This “lovely” flyer was in our mailbox today, along with a couple of pamphlets from various pizza places and two bulletins about Toronto’s waterfront real estate market (those didn’t even make it to the apartment – they went straight into the recycling bin). This is a very hideous flyer: the colours are awfully bright and what’s with the thick outline around the numbers that make the two “6″ look like they’re on top of the “4″? Anyways, despite the ugly design, we thought that Spot Talk (a cheap long distance company) had a great idea by incorporating a sticker with the number to dial on the card. No more rummaging through our million of notepads to find their number! It is now conveniently located directly on our phone. Yes, we wish that all designs were functional and beautiful. Alas, this is a bit too much to ask from a lot of companies…So let’s appreciate the fact that they are, at least, offering us cheap phone calls!

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Affreux et pratique

Ce “charmant” pamphlet était dans notre boîte aux lettres aujourd’hui, accompagné de quelques circulaires de pizzérias et de deux rapports sur le marché de l’immobilier Torontois (ceux-là sont allés directement dans le bac de recyclage!). Pour en revenir au pamphlet, il est vraiment affreux: les couleurs sont beaucoup trop voyantes, et c’est quoi le rapport de l’épais contour autour des chiffres du numéro? On dirait que les deux “6″ sont par-dessus le “4″… En tout cas, même si le design est médiocre, Spot Talk (qui est une compagnie offrant des appels interurbains à coût modique) a eu la bonne idée d’incorporer un autocollant avec le numéro à composer sur la publicité. Plus besoin de fouiller à travers nos calepins afin de trouver leur foutu numéro! Il est désormais bien collé au dos de notre téléphone. Oui, nous aimerions que tout design soit pratique et joli. Hélas, c’est un peu trop demandé de la part de plusieurs compagnies, alors nous devons nous contenter de leur offre d’appels cheap!

We found that beautiful little pamphlet among the dozen of disgustingly ugly flyers that we receive everyday in our mailbox from Pizza Pizza, Domino and Mamma’s Pizza. It really distinguished itself with its 2-colours print, its clean lines and its simply folded beige matte paper. Complete opposite of the other flyers, with . . . → Read More: raaw – Japanese Cuisine]]>

raaw - Japanese Cuisine

We found that beautiful little pamphlet among the dozen of disgustingly ugly flyers that we receive everyday in our mailbox from Pizza Pizza, Domino and Mamma’s Pizza. It really distinguished itself with its 2-colours print, its clean lines and its simply folded beige matte paper. Complete opposite of the other flyers, with their over-the-top bright colours, super shiny inks and grainy looking food pictures. The other flyers went straight into the recycling bin. Raaw’s pamphlet went into our ‘good design/worth keeping as example/inspiration’ box. We have no idea if their food is any good, but their menu flyer is, and that’s all what matters to us, at least for blog purposes.

Even though we are impressed by their mailing piece, we feel a bit let down by their website… First, the logo is all pixelated, the colour black is over-used and the font is ugly. Really, they should have kept the flyer’s recipe for the website as well!

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raaw -Restaurant Japonais

Nous avons reçu ce beau petit pamphlet dans notre boîte aux lettres, parmi une tonnes de dépliants vraiment affreux en provenance de Pizza Pizza, Mamma’s Pizza et Domino. Celui-ci, qui annonce le menu de Raaw, un  restaurant japonais, se distinguait vraiment des autres par la simplicité de son papier, de ses lignes et de ses couleurs. Rien à voir avec les pamphlets des autres restaurants, avec leurs couleurs fluorescentes, leur vernis et leurs photos de nourriture peu appétissante, qui eux sont allés directement dans le bac de recyclage! Le menu de Raaw, quant à lui, a été déposé dans notre boîte ‘design intéressant/vaut la peine d’être conservé/potentiel source d’inspiration’. Est-ce que c’est un bon restaurant? Nous en avons aucune idée, et cela nous importe peu… En autant que le design soit intéressant, cela suffit à en faire le sujet de ce blog!

Même si nous sommes impressionnés par l’envoi postal de Raaw, nous sommes déçus du look de leur site internet: le logo est pixelisé, le noir est beaucoup trop utilisé et la police de caractères est horrible. Décidemment, ils auraient dû utiliser la même recette que pour le pamphlet!