Are your clients in love with you?

Branding is more than just your logoJust as a business is more than just products, alogo or identity is just one piece of what makes an overall brand image.

Successful branding is much bigger and employs a strategic creative plan of action.

Branding involves understanding things such as, what your audience really cares about, what their needs are, then blending this information with goals and objectives. That is the foundation of any strategy, discovering who customers are and how that relates to any business.

How are they interacting with their customers? Are they connecting on more than one level? When customers connect with a business do they feel comfortable and satisfied?

Your overall image should connect with your customers needs and do so with an engaging voice. In other words, talk with your customers, not at your customers. Invite everyone to become a part of the business family and culture. That is the heart of your brand.

Our goal is to develop a strategy and craft a visual solution placing your clients at the centre of your business culture. We use specific strategic, creative methods that will help your clients connect, engage and create a wonderful relationship with their customers.

Image is everything.Image is the stepping stone to your clients engaging with their customers. What if...

their overall image and brand was more appealing? their messages were more clear, concise and inviting? they could really connect visually with their audience? their customers fell in love with them?

Less than 5% of the population reads everything. Everyday people are bombarded with communications from all sides. To reach your customers we will help you; • Create a story that engages emotionally, resonating with customers.• Make places where people gather to learn, to grow and be a part of a business culture.• Help sell with emotion. Selling is about the emotional connection you have with your audience. • Clear out the clutter and let your products and culture shine through. • Help your clients say more with less.

Relationships.All sales transactions are about relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust stems from credibility and how a business is perceived.

Does the business image project credibility? What perception does the audience have of that business and products or services?

When credibility and trust are established in the mind of a target audience, the sale will be easier to make, plus you will draw more people to become emotionally connected to the product offerings.

Our goal is to help your clients develop a unique strategic solution that resonates in the hearts of their customers and makes them fall in love with you!

We will;• learn everything about the business, the competitors and the target audience.• assess the current interactions and communications and explore optimum opportunities.• help them ask better questions which will achieve better results.• help you build a stronger relationship with your clients.• address issues regarding information and presentation of their brand.• provide you with research, strategic design and creativity that will make your business and clients successful!

Winnipeg's Festival of Film and Video Art (WNDX) asked us to illustrate and design a poster, postcard, tickets and a program for their film festival.

The visual solution was a 'clin d'oeil' to WNDX windex the window cleaner. Playfully illustrating window cleaners with projectors helmets suspended and captured like fragments from film. Our client loved the concept and the execution on all of their marketing materials.

You can click festival at a glance and it will take you to the PDF WNDX event program.

achieving balancespirit • emotion • intellect • physical • relations • �nancial • afterward

tools and guidance to live your best life!

Design and development of company name, logo, tag line and a variety of marketing materials for new venture in managment consulting.

It was important to bridge two worlds with this logo, first nations and the business world, this was achieved with the design of a symbol that represents balance while representing first nations culture.

Falcon Beach Ranch Re-Branding

Falcon Beach Ranch is nestled near Falcon Lake, Manitoba, Canada. While visiting the ranch you can enjoy guided horseback trail ride, overnight cowboy cookouts! In the winter fabulous sleigh rides, bonfires and cozy log cabins. We based the logo design on the traditional trail ride and you could be a cowboy for day, a weekend or even a week.

The new logo shown below speaks to that cowboy or cowgirl trail ride experience. The ranch is a stay and play, with trail ride camp outs or rustic log cabins on a sprawling ranch. The new logo reinforces the experience!

We designed a complete package to brand the ranch; logo, tagline, brochures, letterhead, business cards, everything worked around YOUR experience at the ranch, including art direction of photographs, which were shot from the perspective of you being there.

"Your galloping getaway!" Falcon Beach Ranch.

Before

After

Pizza Hotline located in Winnipeg, Manitoba, came to us to acquire a new packaging and brand image to make his pizza company thrive in the franchise environment.

We provided a complete visual audit of his marketing materials and packaging. Then we did an audit of all pizza companies across Canada. Carefully examining competitors, customers and Pizza Hotline goals and objectives. The information gathered became the creative fuel for the design of this award winning packaging. See below.

Clicking on the logo will take you to the Cuckoo's Nest web site.

The Cuckoo's Nest is located in Ottawa, Ontario, an Ontario couple who decided to take their passion for helping people find the perfect gift, into a bricks and mortar business.

We designed and developed everything they needed to succeed, from logo, to tagline to playful and fun stationary, advertising and web site.

Coghlan's rebrand mission. This 40 year institution for camping accessories wanted a creative face-lift. We were only allowed to work on marketing materials. The logo remained the same. Over the course of three years we designed catalogues that embraced a fresh, clean, progressive outdoor look and feel. Each year we made the catalogue easy to use for buyers. The buyers loved receiving the new catalogues each year.

The business cards were the most fun to create as each employee business card featured a product that the employee liked. This made the cards great conversation pieces and we had staff involved in making choices.

We also designed their initial web site which they used for six years. In 2010 Coghlan's decided to hire an inhouse creative designer.

It was great fun working with them, giving them a new direction for their future!

BENITA STAFFORD SMITHINSPIRE THE FIRE WITHIN!

Benita is a coach who inspires the fire within each of the people she works with.

Coach Benita asked us to create a full compliment of marketing materials to help her connect with international clients.

We created logo, tagline, wrote the content and designed her website as well.

Click on logo above, it will direct you to her web site.

Hemp Oil Canada Inc

Hemp Oil Canada contacted us to develop a new logo, a tagline and a product brochure.

We used research with a carefully crafted series of questions to help understand their goals and objectives, then we spoke candidly with some of their existing customers. This combination of information became the fuel that fired their creative result.

One on One Athletic Camps, owned by Jay Gamey, a twenty something University student who started a summer basketball camp for youth ages eight to 19. Jay came to Cats in the Bag design to make his business shine. Jay wanted a logo, a tag line, business cards, letterhead, award certificate, brochure and a variety of other materials to help him succeed.

Jay's future included expanding to a variety of different sport camps. We recommended that jay use "athletic camps" to leave his business open for expansion into other sports in the coming years. The logo we designed for One on One Athletic Camps, demonstrates reaching for the stars. The tagline "shoot for excellence" is positive and motivating.

We always provide extensive research before designing, through the research on this project we discovered his target audience loved positive messages and posters. This inspired us to create a dynamic poster brochure, designed to excite children, inform schools and provide parents with the information they needed. The poster brochure is 23" x 35" and folds down to fit into a #10 envelope, sit in a brochure rack, or could be easily pinned on the way of a gymnasium.

Jay had a 133% increase in kids who registered with his camp from the previous year.

shoot for excellence

What my Coffee says to me an Experiment with Social Media

It all started January 1st, with the idea of creating an illustration a day for 2012. The goal to create 366 illustrations by December 31st. Over the course of those 366 days of creating these playful and daily illustrations, we discovered you can interact more effectively in social media using custom illustrations.

Imagine a series of custom illustrations with positive messages, each are easily tweetable, postable, shareable and pinable. To your delight you discover your custom illustrations receive more retweets and good followers. We discovered exactly that.

What my Coffee says to me – daily, illustrated feeds are more successful than random contact in social media. This type of creativity opens the dialogue, generates trust and communication. That equals sales. As with anything in business, consistency counts, you must do this on a daily basis in order to achieve success.

We can create a custom series for your business. The first step to understand your business, your goals, objectives including your social media objectives. The second step, blend your demographic with daily research to create playful, positive, daily illustrated messages for use in social media. We love the research part, as this is the fuel that drives the creative process.

The goal is to make YOUR customers fall in love with your business, while attracting a stronger social media following and better interaction.

We can brew up an illustrated series that will have your customers loving, sharing and interacting profitably with your business!

Contact Jennifer R. Cook at jrcook@catsinthebag.com today!

Sample illustration from my daily, illustrated series What my #Coffee says to me. You can view over 460caffeinated illustrations on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/catsmeo/boards/

What my #Tea says to me is a daily, illustrated series. The image to the right is an"illustraTEAve review for social media created for Vintage TeaWorks. View all of the illustrations on Pinterest:

http://www.pinterest.com/catsmeo/boards/

Creative custom illustrations to promoteyour services products, or business to yourcustomers. See Pinterestfor more creativity:http://pinterest.com/catsmeo/

www.catsinthebag.com

Strategic design consultancy - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

We make your business become catnip to your customers.