Hello! My name is Stephanie. A few months ago I was fortunate enough to become the first ever Saint Bernadine intern. For the last two years, I’ve been studying in the Marketing Management – Communications program at BCIT. One of the requirements of the program was that each student at the end of their second year completes an internship in which we were each given a listing of internships we could apply.
Before I started sending out my resume, I made a checklist of everything that I would want from an internship. I wanted to work in a small but growing agency so there would be more chances for me to learn and experience a variety of different things from a variety of different industries. I wanted to work in a creative, design-based agency in an account services position since the opportunity to be creative but still strategic was the reason I decided to go into marketing in the first place. I had also wanted to intern in a place that was fun and had some personality. Luckily for me, I found all three things at Saint Bernadine.
Continue reading →
One of the fantastic things about St. Bernadine is that we have a very diverse client base and every day we get to help many different partners that are in a variety of industries. And, every once in a while, an opportunity comes along that allows us to moonlight as matchmakers and bring two of our clients together. Which is exactly what happened recently with the UBC Grand Prix.
A few months ago our client/favourite local watering hole and home of the best fish tacos in town, Mahony & Sons Public House, contacted us about getting involved in the branding of a great new bike race happening at UBC. Mahony & Sons had become involved in the race as the presenting sponsor and wanted us to tackle the branding. Always eager to help out a client and take on interesting branding challenges we jumped on board. Things were starting to come together for the race, but one thing was still missing – a title sponsor. And that is when clients started to collide (in a good way).
Continue reading →
Sure, doing large packaging projects or brand campaign launches are rewarding, but sometimes even the littlest projects can make a difference. Take for example, a little project we recently did for the Public Market on Granville Island. The sun was shining, the team here had BBQ season on the brain and the antenna kebab was born. With stacks of antenna kebabs printed and cut out, we put them on car antennas around Granville Island promoting the Public Market as the place to go for everything you need for summer grilling. The project made all of us here at St. B smile - and we hope you do too. And, if you’re craving something on the BBQ now, you know where to go.
Our office is new, to us, but our building is a bit older. She was constructed in that beautiful era of the late 90′s when teal roofs and window moldings were all the rage (what were these people thinking!). So with the help of Building Opportunities with Business (BOB) we applied for the Chinatown Active Storefront Program.
The program, which was approved in 2009, provides funding for physical upgrades to buildings in Chinatown to leverage recruitment of new businesses, especially those that can contribute to the unique character and identity of the area. Basically the primary objective of the program is to fill empty storefronts, in an area where a lot of storefront space goes underutilized.
BOB approached us and provided information about the program. We were ecstatic, as we’d planned to utilize our storefront space in a unique way that would also give back to the aesthetics of the neighbourhood – you might have seen the few signs we had placed in the window during construction. Those signs were a bit of a tease but our real plan was to put in a space that could be used in a variety of different ways for us, our friends, clients and partners. Kee’s Laundry Gallery was born and will soon host it’s first show. More details soon.
With the help of our friends at Tercera and architects ASIR Studio our facelift was planned and approved by the city.
Construction begins tomorrow and we’re pretty excited about it. So excuse the mess for now but we promise when the bandages come off we’ll look like a natural beauty once again.
New item added to the Gift Shop! Enjoy your very own St. Bernadine beer fridge flowchart replica. Available for a limited time only (that’s marketing speak, it’ll be available forever…LOL) download your free copy of the beer flowchart today!
Preview the full size version here.
A few years ago, we had the professional satisfaction and personal joy of helping brand and launch Mahony & Sons Public House on the UBC campus. It was a great and challenging opportunity. An Irish pub with no green, no shamrocks, and no wee leprechauns? Was it possible to dream such a thing? Thousands of pints later, we were tasked with helping launch their second location at the north end of the new Vancouver Convention Centre. We were emboldened; why wouldn’t we be? We knew the branding was working – customers had commented favourably over the years, we had won a few branding and design awards for our efforts, and their business was healthy.
But the launch of this second location felt heavier. It was a much bigger investment and the family was putting on the line all of the success and sweat equity (swequity?) they had built from their first location. It didn’t feel like a fun little whim branding a bar kinda project… this was different. Jobs and livelihoods were on the line and so much passion and care had gone into building their business thus far.
Continue reading →
Everyone loves a good story. Stories make us laugh, cause us to cry, ignite anger, and sometimes even, motivate change. For marketers, this offers the opportunity for engagement – to grab their audience’s attention and get them personally invested in a product or idea.
As marketers we’re in the business of making people feel things they didn’t predict. Making people care about the things we care about. Stories are what make people care – and we need people to care.
- James Mitchell, Planner at Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Perhaps the word authentic is over-used, but you can’t ignore what it means. Real life isn’t perfect. All too often advertising misses the mark and places their product or idea on a pedestal (along with all the people who consume, subscribe, listen and participate). I mean, how often do you slow-motion shake your freshly shampooed hair as you walk down the street? Or get the perfect breeze so that your highlights glimmer in the sun? If I get hit by the slightest wind my bangs immediately split down the middle and fly skyward to expose my gigantic forehead. Marketers like to call this positioning “aspirational”, but, let’s be honest, it’s not real. And consumers can see that. Sometimes immediately, but thankfully at least, more often than not, eventually.
Continue reading →
After months, nay, a year of embarking upon this project we’re finally finished our new website (or at least close enough to push it live). We’re pretty proud of it and excited about all the neat features and little surprises you’ll find throughout the site.
Our old website was pretty plain, having been thrown together when our agency first started about six years ago. To be honest, maybe that was part of its charm. We didn’t spend much time or energy on it. We were focused on our clients, not ourselves. And in this day and age when we first turn to the internet for research, websites are important. Let’s be real, we do judge books by their covers (and more importantly booze labels) and websites are definitely one of them. Sometimes they’re your first interaction with a business and it can make a lasting impression. Not that our website was terrible, it was just missing cool animated gifs and a fancy splash page. I know, you’re asking yourself “But St. Bernadine, you guys are so cool, good looking and creative. Why’d it take so long to get a new site going?” Well my friend, we are our own worst client.
As an advertising and branding firm, it goes without saying we’re critical of the work we do for our clients. We strive for each piece to be hard working, beautifully designed and generate results. And the same is true for our own website but because it’s promoting ourselves, we (well, some of us) tend to over analyze it. We’re creative people… in the shower, riding our bike, on the drive to work, listening to our significant other talk about their day… we’re consistently thinking of cool things to add to our creation. Honestly, at one point the website probably resembled a weird online version of Disneyland with a religious undertone. But luckily, we also know when to rein it in and made a site that is simple, yet gives the user all the information they need and shows off a bit of our agency personality. And heck, we’ve even put some work samples in there for all the looky-loo’s.
So take a tour and don’t get lost. Some fun features to look for on your way are:
- Check out the Behemoth Agencian Translator. Venn diagrams! Such fun!
- Choose a different background throughout the site. Collect all 4!
- Bad link? Oh no. Don’t worry, we’ll make it worth your while.
- Search through our work samples by category, client, medium or mood!
- Check out our Chinatown Adventure Map on the Get in Touch page to see all the weird and fun places we frequent in our new neighbourhood.
Have fun and let us know what you think.
On January 24th we officially moved into our brand new home in Chinatown! As you can probably guess, this is pretty exciting for us (not to mention long overdue). For 5 years we resided in our little office in Gastown and as we grew, our space could only grow so much. It was definitely time for a new home.
Things we’ll miss about our old office:
- The beautiful view of the north shore mountains and the city
- All the delicious places to eat that ended up knowing us by name (sorry Spinroll
)
- All of the great friends we made that work out 318. We’ll miss you guys.
Things we won’t miss:
- Our old phone system!! No more ‘farting’ noises and picking up on other people’s calls. Heck yes!
- The elevator always being broken
- Being packed into a space that made us feel like veal.
- Freezing cold bathrooms aka ‘The Torture Chamber of Cold’
- Not being able to microwave something and have a heater on at the same time, without the circuit going.
- Sweaty in the Summer, freezing in the Winter
- Random free stuff that popped up in the lobby (seriously who wants a used binder?)
We can’t wait have all our clients and friends over to our new space for a big ‘ol
housewarming party once we’ve settled in. Stay tuned for photos!
Also make sure to come back to visit our blog now and then or subscribe to our RSS
feed to keep up with our Mission Musings.
Cheers!
