On a sunny day in November, CASACOM brought Canadian media to an exclusive launch event at Luxe Laboratory in New York City hosted by our client, Tommee Tippee.  For those of you not familiar with Tommee Tippee, it is the number-one brand of infant and toddler feeding products in the UK and one of the top brands of infant products and accessories in the global market.  Its products have a solid reputation for clever ideas, product quality and intuitive designs that promote natural development at every age, stage and feeding need. In Canada, Tommee Tippee is sold exclusively at TOYS R US.

Set in a Manhattan loft apartment, the launch event offered media and influencers the opportunity to touch, feel and experience the Tommee Tippee range of style-driven products. Our host, Tracy Giovanoni, Head of North American Marketing for Tommee Tippee, welcomed us and led the Canadians on an interactive tour of each room in the apartment and demonstrate how the brand fits into the lives of a busy family with an infant and toddler.  We received a sneak preview of a very exciting digital storybook, ‘The Day Baby Was Born’, which will launch in Canada next spring (Stay tuned!).   By all accounts, the day was a wonderful learning opportunity for our media, and a lot of fun too! A big thank you to Reeva Waksberg and Martine Venne for leading media strategy and coordinating the event logistics.

Loukia Zigoumis (@mrsloulou) shares her expertise on Tommee Tippee products on CTV’s Ottawa Morning.

To join the conversation with other Tommee Mommies and Daddies, please visit Facebook Twitter and YouTube. Loved by parents and children alike, Tommee Tippee has received numerous brand accolades in Great Britain, including top ranks in the prestigious Mother and Baby Awards, a head-to-head assessment of competitive products voted on by moms themselves. The Tommee Tippee Closer to Nature line of baby bottles has been chosen as Great Britain’s best baby bottle, winning the Gold award in 2006/7, in 2008/9 and again in 2009/10. In 2009, Tommee Tippee was the first and only children’s feeding brand to be selected as a UK Superbrand in a nationwide poll of consumers, putting it on par with brands such as Microsoft®, Coca-Cola®, Nike®, Lego® and Google®.

In this photo, Ali Martell from Canadian Family and Loukia Zigoumis (@mrsloulou) from the yummymummyclub.ca take the ‘sippy cup challenge’ to learn about Tommee Tippee’s spill-proof and leak-proof cups! (If you want to try this out, let us know!)

On Saturday October 15th, our client, L’Association des ingénieurs-conseils du Québec(AICQ) presented the first edition of the open house on engineering, where 17 innovative projects were visited in the company of engineers in Montreal, Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Saguenay.

The event, proposed and coordinated by CASACOM, has enabled more than 5,000 curious and passionate about science and engineering to discover large-scale projects in a new light. In addition, some visitors had the opportunity to meet with the actor Stéphane Bellavance, spokesperson of the day.

To contribute to the success of the day, several elements were essential. A web page containing the details of the event and a Facebook page were created for the occasion. Media Relations in the four cities and a large advertising campaign (television, radio and flyers distributed to schools and key associations) have also been implemented. Meetings and follow-up with all the consulting engineering firms participating were also coordinated by CASACOM for all the details surrounding the logistics and promotion of the event.

Last week, we announced the opening of our Toronto office and Carolyn Ray as Managing Director. Today, I want to share with you a bit more about Carolyn, a person that we’ve had the pleasure to work with for several months.

Carolyn rounds out the CASACOM team wonderfully. For more than 20 years, she has worked as a consultant in top level communications. During her diverse career, she has advised both B2B and B2C organizations, and is recognized as an expert in aligning external and internal communications.

Carolyn possesses unique credentials, having practiced public relations, marketing and branding. From her time at Interbrand, she is a passionate defender of brands and understands what drives their value. In addition, she has a profound understanding of how vital internal communications is to business success; she understands how to help leaders and managers authentically engage employees during times of organizational change. She also believes in the power of face-to-face dialogue – perhaps that’s why her twitter name is @dialoguedivaray!

Beyond her solid experience and business-savvy, Carolyn is constantly encouraging the people around her to strive for insights, challenge conventional thinking, and continue to be highly discerning. She is enthusiastic, committed to the best possible outcomes and deeply engaged to her clients and team. And although we, as Montrealers, pride ourselves on our joie de vivre, I can tell you that Carolyn’s energy and humour is absolutely contagious.  From playing on the Unionville soccer team, to teaching new PR approaches at Ryerson, to being actively involved on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters, she is very passionate about giving back to her community.

We are truly happy to welcome her to our team. Our office on College Street in Toronto is in a wonderful neighbourhood filled with unique restaurants and cafes, so if you’re looking for a fresh perspective, please stop by for some Italian pastries any time!

Building a business like CASACOM starts with a vision. I remember when I founded CASACOM ten years ago all by myself, I had a very simple vision of working with people, for people. I wanted to build a business that would make a difference in the lives of others — whether they are clients or employees.  I wanted to build a company that if it disappeared, “the world” would miss something.

I believe we created something like that here, in our own special way, because our purpose goes beyond ourselves and givesus the motivation to be at our best, every day.

At CASACOM, we are only satisfied…

… when we help our clients reach their business goals,

… when our teammates grow and develop their best possible selves,

… when, in the organizations we work with, communications is seen as an accelerator of business strategy.

After all those years, as we open our new office in Toronto, I feel a lot of gratitude.

First I feel privileged to have had so many clients that have entrusted us with their most precious projects.  Thank you.

Second, I feel privileged to count on such an incredible group of people here at CASACOM, people who make us strong and relevant. I thank them for their genuine interest in their work, their commitment and passion for our clients.

Third, I feel privileged to be working with such a wonderful Managing Director for our Toronto office, Carolyn Ray. With Carolyn’s passionate leadership in Toronto, we can extend this philosophy, reinforce our unique approach to collaboration and excellence, and truly make a difference in our clients’ businesses.

And of course, none of this would be possible without our amazing friends and family, who are an important part of our community. Without all these people, none of this would be happening. People are, truly, what this all about.

So, as we celebrate 10 years of CASACOM and our new expansion to Toronto, I want to say thank you for helping me achieve my vision, for inspiring me to continue to make a difference every day.  I look forward to the next 10 years.

As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of CASACOM, it’s timely to reflect on all the changes that have occurred in our industry. Sometimes we’ve been witness to them, and sometimes we’ve been the actors. Here are 10 changes that have occurred in our industry over the course of the last decade.

1. Ascension. Communications has always been important to the success of businesses, but over the past years, it has become an essential capability for leaders. In addition to designating experts to be responsible for communications, senior executives should excel in this area as well, to achieve their business goals. It’s certainly one of the most useful skills for ascending the ranks of a business.

2. Recognition. We’ve taken enormous steps towards recognizing the value of communications. While ROI (return on investment) has always been a fashionable concept, more and more managers are recognizing that effective communications can mean success or failure for a project. The more managers understand the value of communications, the more can support it.

3. Integration. It’s impossible to think only about public relations as an distinct role. How can anyone today limit oneself to just one discipline? When a client presents us with a problem, we should consider all possible means of communication, as part of the solution, whether they fall into the traditional definition of PR or not.

4. Collaboration. Within the context of integration, we now collaborate closely with experts in other disciplines. The advertising-PR-social media ménage à trois is now essential to the success of our work.

5. Multiplication… of media. The number of television networks, web shows, webzines, blogs, radio networks, journals and magazines has exploded. The end of traditional media was predicted; however, it’s still there, alive and well and, for the most part, relevant. Traditional media should, however, coexist with the new, often ingenious, content developers. Traditional journalism must adapt to this new reality.

6. Proliferation… of target markets. These days, the entire world has the potential to influence or prorogate news. Everyone can be a writer, blogger, commentator, or spokesperson. The role of public relations is therefore to understand how influence works among multiple audiences, and how to best integrate consumers, clients, employees, bloggers and experts. As a result, strategies, messages and tactics are multiplied.

7. Conversation. Goodbye to the ‘push-out’ press releases and speeches that we wrote at the beginning of our careers! Gone are the days when we believed that a skilled pen was enough to ensure that our messages were well received by our audiences. Today, to truly engage with our stakeholders, we must demonstrate relevance, we must understand the dynamics of dialogue, and we must inspire. Transparency and authenticity are our best tools for meaningful conversation.

8. Editing. Editors are no longer the others: they are us! Businesses must become producers of social media content if they want to communicate with and engage their publics. Establishing editorial calendars, acting as the editor in chief, producing content, juggling deadlines: here are our new realities to us.

9. Miniaturization. Where once we were used to long narratives, we must now reduce content or fit it into 140-word messages, brief videos or audio that can be adapted to different media, notably mobile devices, and strive for clarity. Writing has certainly had its part in the revolution… and I’m not even touching on the different writing styles preferred, for example, to maximize SEO. (yet another change).

10. Acceleration. When CBC NewsWorld was created in the 90s, we saw a shift to immediacy. We hadn’t seen anything yet. Add social media, and the amount of information becomes dizzying. This accelerated news cycle means that communicators must equip themselves with systems of continuous, real-time monitoring 24×7… and be in excellent shape!

What a decade! I wonder if the next will be as exciting. What do you think?