The holiday season is upon us and it’s time to celebrate: Toronto Eaton Centre’s Christmas Program is here!

And this year, in collaboration with the High Road team, TEC pulled out all the stops to leave mall-goers dazzled and delighted.

The first thing on HRC’s Christmas list was working with Toronto Eaton Centre to set up the “Style your own Holiday Greeting” app, which allows Facebook users to create, customize and share their own online greeting card with friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

The application was designed in-house by HRC’s creative team, using TEC’s new Christmas imagery. From these custom images, Toronto Eaton Centre Facebook followers choose what their greeting card will look like.

Once the greeting card design is chosen, users get to pick their own message – wishing for new clothes, lots of snow, or time with family and friends – to give their greeting a personalized touch. Greetings can then be shared on Facebook, or on Twitter, to spread the Christmas cheer.

High Road’s development team –our very own Christmas elves – built the whole experience, including places for users to watch Toronto Eaton Centre’s Christmas videos, and get all the information they need on ongoing Christmas events.

And to spread the word even further, we partnered with three Toronto bloggers to share Toronto Eaton Centre’s holiday experience. Bryan from 1LOVETO stopped by in November to check out TEC’s tree lightening ceremony, complete with a 50-foot modern LED Christmas tree – and six giant LED reindeer. Bryan tweeted throughout the night, and took amazing photos of the whole event, capturing shots of host Jeanne Beker, musical guest Kreesha Turner and, of course, Santa.

We also worked with Carrie Anne from EverythingMom.com to share her and her daughter’s day at Storytime with Santa – where kids get to experience the North Pole in the heart of downtown Toronto – capturing everything from the feeling of stepping into the North Pole, to time with Santa himself.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Christmas without lots of shopping, so we partnered with Sharon from The Backseat Stylers to visit TEC’s brand new Sephora location, giving readers an inside look at what’s in store and how you could score a free one-on-one personal beauty advisor session.

For more visit Toronto Eaton Centre’s Facebook or Twitter page, or spend an afternoon at TEC for a first-hand look at the Christmas delights for shoppers.

And as the HRC team gears up to spend the holidays with friends and family, we want to wish you all the best this season.

From High Road and Toronto Eaton Centre: Happy Holidays!

Last week, in collaboration with The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) and the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI), we were pleased to launch their 2011-2012 annual reports – both dynamic, online explorations into the year gone by.

High Road Communications is proud to continue working with TOH and OHRI in different areas, most recently re-launching worldclasscare.ca and tomorrowscaretoday.ca to highlight accomplishments from 2011.  The result is two functional and visually stunning sites that offer stakeholders, and the community in general, easy access to compelling content. And similar to last year’s online-only reports, which we were also happy to work with TOH and OHRI on, these demonstrate their commitment to staying green.

Building on last year’s success, for 2011-2012 we focused on taking storytelling to the next level – and the stories TOH and OHRI shared are simply incredible. 

 

Our team attended a truly innovative neurosurgery and learned from surgeons across many disciplines how cutting-edge technology and expertise is helping TOH’s talented team change practice and save lives through minimally invasive surgery.

We also interviewed a Canadian diplomat injured in Afghanistan and saw firsthand how TOHRC’s innovative virtual reality technology has made all the difference in her rehabilitation.

Finally, we spoke with OHRI researchers and discovered how stem cell research is making tomorrow’s healthcare possible for today.

In order to celebrate the people who power these world-renowned institutions and showcase these amazing written and video case studies, we also stepped up the design and functionality of this year’s reports with:

• Engaging design and compelling photography: the design of each report highlight some real, behind-the-scenes moments with staff, volunteers and patients using vibrant photography and captivating video to give users a glimpse of a day at the hospital.

• User-friendly, any time, anywhere experience: Accessible from any device, information in these reports can be found within just two clicks from the homepage. Background photography scales to size (eliminating the need for horizontal scrolling), and touch-friendly mobile versions are optimized specifically for iPhone and iPad—which many hospital staff depend on for their day-to-day workflow.

• Shareability: Highly social, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are baked in to the experience, allowing both reports to easily be shared across the community, instead of simply key stakeholders.

All in all, we had the opportunity to meet passionate staff and volunteers, patients with incredible stories of struggle, recovery and triumph, and researchers that are making leaps and bounds in their fields.

High Road is honoured to be a part of sharing these stories, and want to congratulate TOH and OHRI on another wonderful year of patient care, research and creating hope for the future.

Be sure to check out the TOH 2011 – 2012 Annual Report and OHRI 2011 – 2012 Annual Report.

Ah, Social Media Week.

Over five days, last month’s #SMWTO featured free events at different locations across Toronto – including one at High Road’s Toronto office, featuring two super-savvy leaders from HRC client Chobani’s digital team.

The talk was a popular one, with more than 50 in attendance and big chatter on Twitter. Chobani’s Emily Schildt and Lindsay Kos gave a snapshot of how this company uses Pinterest and Instagram as a way to deepen relationships and heighten awareness about not just the brand, but the brand’s value.

I’m a huge fan of Pinterest, but as the popularity of the visual social media site explodes I’m the first one to admit that I’ve been a little bit worried about the “wrong types” of users flooding the site with junk.

But Chobani? They’re doing it right: sharing recipes, lifestyle boards about things like travel and fitness, and they smartly have a board titled “Nothing but Good” (the company’s tagline) with no yogurt at all – just images that reflect that mantra. In short, Chobani is adding value on Pinterest. I want to follow them, along with their 3,000+ other followers.

At the session we learned that Chobani manages social media committing to two key beliefs:

1. People want to connect with people, not businesses.
2. People want to find and share interesting content that is relevant to them.

In sum: If you’re going to use social media to get closer to consumers, aim not to only promote, but to improve and deepen relationships as well as enhance the online experience for your followers.

Oh, and try and have a little fun!

So here is a quick snapshot of the Pinterest tips Emily and Lindsay shared:

• Pin varied content that’s shareable
• Support other channels and influencers visually
• Create enough boards to target different audiences… but don’t go board crazy
• Pin during work hours and late at night; that’s when people are watching/participating
• Spread pins out, pinning consistently
• Following a like-minded good group so finding repins is a breeze

With Instagram, Chobani sets out to “Show personality, and wave our freak flags high,” offering tips such as:

• Watch for trends and then host the conversation
• Support your efforts through your other channels
• “Like” and “comment” on relevant photos
• Contribute to popular (but not too popular) tags
• Be consistent: Give users something to contribute to

All in all, it was a great session. Big thanks to the team at Chobani for so openly sharing your vision. Oh, and another bonus of the event? I finally got to try the America’s #1 yogurt (I’m based in Ottawa and in Canada it’s currently only available only in the GTA) – and really, truly – it is delicious.