I stood dumbstruck, looking at the latest poster campaign for our Green Capital campaign. Type only, a headline with no direct involvement for the reader, copy with no specifics, and generic web addresses buried at the bottom as a half-hearted call-to-action. How did such a dull poster possibly get made ...
Is Vancouver’s streetcar branding off track with B.C.’s transportation policies?
I spotted ‘Vancouver’s 2010 Streetcar’ on a testing run at the Granville Island terminus today. Aside from the visual stopping power of this sleek modern Bombardier train, an equally sleek transit advertisement on its side is what caught my eye. “The climate is right for trains.” it boldly proclaims. I ...
Green chicks rule.
Ever since I first laid eyes on the Orion Slave Girl from the original pilot episode of Star Trek, I knew. Now the research backs it up. A study recently called Eco-Insights, released by Earthsense, identified women as the green market’s most important movers. If you have a green brand, ...
Metro Vancouver’s new anti-waste campaign: Cool green, or just plain Grinchy?
This holiday season, Vancouverites may have noticed a trashy little ad campaign from Metro Vancouver encouraging them to re-think their holiday waste. These are transit ads at my local Canada Line station spied on my way to Oakridge Mall (OK, I’m busted – not all of my shopping takes place ...
Green Briefs readers tell all.
You clicked, you voted, you commented. Then I procrastinated. So before the data is dated, (not to mention the iPod prize) I am happy to present some of the more interesting findings from the Unicycle Creative Brand Survey 2009. And of course, reward one lucky clicker. The objective was to ...
Apple fail: A tale of 2 packages.
When I bought my new MacBook Pro, I knew there would be a few necessary accessories, such as cable adapters. I needed two – one to help the new firewire 800 port talk to my old Firewire devices, the other to ensure my screen output could speak VGA. The Firewire ...
The future of Telus TV could be even friendlier.
This fall, our family got Telus TV. The promo deal sucked us in, our friendly installer managed to figure out how to wire both ends of a 1920’s apartment without stapling cable everywhere and now we can vegetate digitally. (Of course, the first thing I did with this marvel of ...
Concerts are garbage these days.
Saturday night I attended the Corb Lund show at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom. One of the best (and only remaining) mid-size venues in the city. The music was fantastic. Corb Lund (and his band the Hurtin’ Albertans) are a tight ‘alt country’ act that brings a genuine thinking person’s perspective to ...
Dear Mayor Gregor: Three free ideas to get Vancouver’s new bright green brand out of the boardroom and on to the streets.
I was unusually buoyant, (considering I was reading a government document), as I waded through the new 72-page PDF report – Vancouver 2020, a Bright Green Future. This is the much-awaited guide to Vancouver City Council’s ambitious plan to be ‘a top-five global clean-tech city’, complete with a shiny new ...
Is ‘Granville Island’ Brewing now serving up Localwash?
Next time you reach for a frosty British Columbia ‘microbrew’, you may want to take a closer look at the fine print. Yesterday it was announced that Granville Island Brewing was bought by Creemore, itself a sub-brand owned entirely by Molson Coors. Big brewers taking over small brands is nothing ...