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Communications lessons from Wallace the Llama

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 07th, 2012

We’re doing some (early) spring cleaning at the AHA office. As we go through files, media coverage binders and jump drives, we have the opportunity to reflect a little on campaigns and projects from the past. This week, we came across the files for one of our favourite creative campaigns. In the early days of AHA, we were fortunate enough to be asked to work on a documentary series called Healing with Animals, produced by Mystique Films. This was a fabulous series that focused on how animals help humans heal.

We wanted traditional media coverage for the launch of the…

Make your communications efforts more relevant

Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on February 03rd, 2012

In today’s AHA Fast Take Friday Ruth talks about the importance of integration when it comes to your marketing and communications efforts.

It’s about relationships, people!!!

Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on February 01st, 2012

My friend, mentor and former boss, Della Smith of Q Workshops, is a smart cookie. She may, in fact, be the smartest person I have ever met. (And I have met a lot of really, really smart people!)

Now, I am not sure I would put Della up against Jeopardy genius Ken Jennings—that’s just a different kind of smart (and one that I believe has more to do with memory than anything else). But I have seen Della in a wide range of scenarios—from dealing with an organization facing a huge crisis to sipping a cold…

Going the distance with your PR campaigns

Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on January 27th, 2012

In today’s AHA Fast Take Friday, Ruth uses her training for the Vancouver Sun Run as an analogy for a communications outreach.

What Jimmy Buffett taught me about corporate storytelling

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 26th, 2012

Years ago, as a journalist for a national magazine, I had the opportunity to interview music legend Jimmy Buffett. Now, I happen to be a Jimmy Buffett fan (we are affectionately known as Parrot Heads), so this was a pretty special interview for me!

Jimmy Buffett has an incredible business mind and a true entrepreneurial spirit. (There are unsubstantiated rumours that he is related to Warren Buffett, so the business part of his brain kind of makes sense.) He was one of the first in the music business to embrace digital technology; he recognized the coming shift in the music…

Telling your organization’s story

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 24th, 2012

Once you understand what the story currently being told about your organization focuses on (see last week’s post on “The art and science of telling a great corporate story”), the next step is to identify the storyline that you want to tell. There are many story structures that you can use to tell the story in a way that engages your audience. While, at first glance, some of these approaches may seem a little “Hollywood” – keep in mind that show business is a very successful industry that is based on telling stories.

There are some standard approaches…

The art and science of telling a great (corporate) story

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 19th, 2012

Telling your organization’s story isn’t as easy as some would think, but it certainly isn’t hard. It does take some time and effort, but the results provide excellent return on investment.

The fact is, stories are being told about your organization all the time. Whether the stories are good or bad, they are being told by clients or customers, by service providers, employees and contractors (and their families and friends), by competitors, your board members, government officials and by the media.

When we start working with a client, we often do a little bit of research and find some of…

Crisis communications – the prequel

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 17th, 2012

This blog post isn’t about what to do should your organization be faced with an issue or a crisis. It is about what you can do today, proactively, even if there isn’t the slightest evidence that there might be a challenge in your future. (A word of warning: A small mistake by someone in your organization could get a lot of interest online and turn into a huge crisis. Don’t think a crisis would never happen to you. It can. And at some point, it likely will.)

Back to today’s post…

We are often asked to develop issues and crisis…

Where do you want to be?

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 13th, 2012

In today’s AHA Fast Take Friday from St. Kitts, Ruth talks about knowing where you currently are, where you want to go and giving campaigns enough time to accomplish your objectives.

In the news: Shaw Media

Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on January 12th, 2012

The Vancouver Sun is reporting today that Shaw Media will launch an all-news channel for British Columbia in the summer of 2012. Global BC will be responsible for the content. Fingers are crossed at AHA that this also means that Global will have more television cameras available to record the news going on in the Lower Mainland.

Click here for a link to the story.