As part of a new public affairs campaign and communications strategy, the CBA required a Web site that delivered tailored messages to its target audiences including media, government regulators, and the general public.  The site had to integrate and support its Building a Better Understanding program, which included a national advertising campaign and 14-booklet series on a variety of financial topics.

An extensive audit was conducted to establish key objectives and identify audiences, define measurement benchmarks and outline criteria for appropriate site content. The results of the audit allowed High Road to design an information architecture that was both usable and intuitive, delivering the key messages to a particular audience in as few clicks as possible.

The CBA’s publication ordering process and information dissemination processes were reviewed and changed to be deployed over the web site.  After the launch, more than 80 percent of publication orders were handled on-line and call volume to the CBA Public Affairs department was reduced by fifty per cent.

A comprehensive back-end database was also built to handle publication order fulfillment, measure site statistics and track site usage. In addition, a content development plan was used to organize and create new content for the Web site. iStudio oversaw the entire site development process, and worked closely with the CBA’s small public affairs team to deliver a new Web site in a tight time frame.

Since its release, the site has received positive reviews by the CBA’s key audiences and has become an integral part of their communications program.  As a result, requests for information have decreased and site traffic has increased exponentially, now averaging 40,000 unique visits a day.  More than 95% of the CBA publications have now been fulfilled through its Web site, with over three million booklets ordered by the general public, teachers and bankers.

In 2009, High Road Communications lead the planning and design of an internal microsite that supports the roll-out of Sun Life’s brand vision and values.  This micro-site, “BrandShare”, integrates social media to encourage and showcase employees’ engagement with the Sun Life brand.  Employees can share photos and videos of themselves, their colleagues or their families that show Sun Life’s brand attributes and they can enter into discussion forums to discuss and share stories around the brand. They can also access educational content that explains the business value of a brand, Sun Life’s brand journey and how a consistent brand expression can help the performance of the company.  Virtually all content on BrandShare enables and encourages engagement from employees – creating and publishing content through real-time dialogue in discussion forums, through to full commenting, rating and tagging functionality.

How do you engage employees at a level that stimulates corporate growth, collaboration and innovation? These were the questions posed when RBC Financial Group approached High Road Communications to move employees from being informed to being engaged.

High Road worked closely with RBC staff and internal stakeholders to define a communications vehicle that met the needs of a diverse range of employees. Content strategy was defined in collaboration with RBC and included discussion on strategic initiatives that define RBC’s core strengths, including competitive intelligence, business development and financial literacy.

With this knowledge the monthly, bilingual online publication, RBC Insite, was born. RBC INsite provides a number of feedback options to increase a sense of belonging and collaboration – from dynamic polls to article rating, related reading, e-mail feedback, and article commenting.

The feedback has been incredibly strong, with hundreds of comments posted, story suggestions put forward, and an average of 150 article ratings per issue, suggesting that High Road has successfully turned RBC’s informed employees into engaged employees.