Ontario’s French-language educational broadcaster GroupMédia TFO has awarded its creative and strategic branding duties to Toronto’s Lowe Roche following a review.
Lowe Roche was selected from approximately six agencies that responded to an RFP issued early this summer. It will collaborate on the assignment with Mordicus Communications, an Ottawa agency that specializes in servicing French-language groups (clients include the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, La Cité collégiale and Ecoverde).
“[Lowe Roche’s] presentation really stood out from the rest,” said TFO’s senior marketing director Pascal Arseneau, who returned to the organization in March to oversee its newly created marketing division (he was previously TFO’s director of network and on-air promotion before departing in 2003).
Lowe Roche is charged with revamping the communications company’s overall brand, a task encompassing more than simply creating a new visual identity said Arseneau.
“The starting point was not ‘We need a new logo.’ It was more about everything that supports and leads to the brand image,” he said. “If it means a retooling of the logo, then so be it.”
While TFO has strong brand recognition among constituencies such as programmers and distributors, Arseneau said it is not as well known among the general public.
“We need to take it to the public, and we thought that Lowe Roche, with its simple, clean, witty approach, was a good match for who we are,” said Arseneau.
Arseneau said that rebranding work conducted for the Quebec TV brand Zeste by Amuse – a Montreal boutique agency that was recently brought into the agency’s corporate family and is headed by newly appointed Lowe Roche CEO Monica Ruffo – was also a factor in the decision.
“The creative [for Zeste] was just right on: clean, simple, to the point, colourful and modern,” said Arseneau. “That’s what we want to project.”
Lowe Roche is currently conducting a “brand audit,” examining each of TFO’s points of consumer contact to shape the organization’s new brand identity. The agency’s first work for TFO is expected to appear next year, in conjunction with the broadcaster’s 25th anniversary.
