Services / Branding & Creative
Branding & creative that gives your business something to say.
A strong brand is more than a logo. It's how your business looks, sounds and feels. It's what people remember about you. And, ultimately, it's part of the reason they choose you instead of someone else.
PLAY Advertising helps businesses and organizations develop brands, creative ideas and marketing communications designed to get noticed and make an impression. From brand strategy and identity development to graphic design and full advertising campaigns, we combine strategic thinking with creative execution to build brands people recognize, understand and remember.
Based in Burlington and working extensively with clients in Hamilton and throughout Southern Ontario, PLAY brings more than 25 years of advertising and creative experience to every project.
Good Creative Starts With a Good Idea
It's easy to make something look good. The harder part is making it mean something.
Effective creative needs to communicate the right message to the right audience while giving them a reason to notice, remember or act. That's why PLAY doesn't separate creative from strategy. Before we start designing, writing or producing, we want to understand the business, the audience, the competition and what the communication needs to accomplish.
Then we get creative.
What Is Branding?
Branding is the process of defining how a business or organization presents itself to the world. That includes visual elements such as your logo, colours, typography and imagery, but it goes much further. A brand also includes your positioning, personality, messaging, tone of voice and the experience people associate with your organization.
Strong branding helps answer three important questions:
Who are you?
What makes you different?
Why should someone care?
PLAY helps turn those answers into a brand people can recognize and understand.
What's included
Branding & Creative Services
Whether you're starting something new, refreshing an established brand or developing a campaign, PLAY can provide the strategy and creative capabilities needed to bring the idea to life.
Brand Strategy
Before developing how a brand looks, we establish what it should stand for.
Brand strategy can include positioning, audience definition, competitive analysis, value proposition, brand personality, messaging and the overall direction that guides future communications.
Brand Identity
Your visual identity should make your organization recognizable wherever people encounter it. PLAY develops cohesive visual identity systems that can include:
The objective isn't simply consistency. It's recognition.
Logo Design
A logo is one of the most visible elements of a brand, but it shouldn't be developed in isolation. We approach logo design as part of the larger brand system, considering where it will appear, how it needs to function and what it should communicate about the organization behind it. From digital applications and social profiles to signage, print and advertising, the identity needs to work everywhere the brand does.
Graphic Design
Good graphic design makes information easier to understand and harder to ignore. PLAY provides professional graphic design for businesses and organizations across digital and traditional media. Projects can include:
Because our designers work alongside strategy, advertising, content and digital specialists, the creative is developed with the larger marketing objective in mind.
Advertising Creative
An advertising campaign has seconds to earn someone's attention. The creative needs to work quickly. PLAY develops campaign concepts and advertising creative designed around a clear objective, audience and message.
And because PLAY also provides media planning and advertising services, creative can be developed specifically for the channels where the campaign will run.
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Campaign concepts
02
Art direction
03
Copywriting
04
Digital advertising creative
05
Social advertising
06
Video
07
Radio
08
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Outdoor
10
Display advertising
11
Landing page creative
12
Campaign extensions
Copywriting & Messaging
What you say matters just as much as how it looks. PLAY develops messaging and copy that help businesses communicate clearly and consistently.
The objective isn't clever writing for the sake of being clever. It's finding the clearest and most compelling way to communicate the idea.
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Brand messaging
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Taglines
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Advertising copy
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Website copy
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Campaign messaging
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Social content
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Video scripts
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Sales materials
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Brochures
10
Email campaigns
Brand Refreshes & Rebranding
Sometimes a business changes faster than its brand. The organization may have grown. Its customers may have changed. New competitors may have entered the market. The company may offer services today that didn't exist when the identity was created.
Or the brand may simply look dated. That doesn't always mean starting over.
PLAY can assess the existing brand and determine whether it needs refinement, repositioning or a more comprehensive rebrand. A brand refresh might involve updating visual elements while retaining existing recognition. A rebrand may involve reconsidering positioning, messaging, identity and how the organization presents itself across every customer touchpoint. The right answer depends on what the business needs — not what's fashionable.
From Brand to Campaign
A brand isn't something that lives inside a brand standards document. It needs to work in the real world.
On your website. In advertising. Across social media. In video. On signage. In a presentation. At an event. In the hands of your sales team.
That's why PLAY approaches branding with execution in mind. We can develop the brand and then help put it to work across the marketing channels your business uses.
Creative That Works Across Every Channel
The same creative idea may need to work very differently depending on where someone encounters it. A billboard might have three seconds to communicate. A social ad might have even less. A video has movement, sound and storytelling. A website allows someone to explore. A brochure has to make sense without anyone there to explain it.
PLAY develops creative systems that can adapt across channels while maintaining a consistent idea and brand.
Advertising
Campaign concepts and creative designed for digital and traditional media.
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Content
Photography, video and social content that extend the brand.
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Digital
Creative designed around the behaviours and formats of digital platforms.
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Web
A digital experience that brings the brand to life.
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Print & Collateral
Physical communications that maintain the same level of quality and consistency.
Branding for Growing Businesses
Growing businesses often reach a point where the brand they started with no longer reflects the business they've become. The logo may have been created years ago. Marketing materials don't match. The website looks different from social media. Different people are creating communications without a consistent visual or messaging system. And as the company grows, those inconsistencies become increasingly visible.
PLAY can help establish a professional brand system that gives a growing business the foundation it needs for the next stage. That may mean a complete rebrand. Or it may simply mean bringing greater clarity and consistency to what already exists.
Creative Support for Established Organizations
Established organizations face different creative challenges. They may already have strong brand standards and an internal marketing department but need additional creative capacity, campaign thinking or specialized production support. PLAY can work within an existing brand system or help evolve it.
Whether PLAY leads the project or works alongside an internal team, the objective is the same: produce creative work that supports the organization and the marketing objective.
We can support internal marketing teams with
A Creative Agency for Hamilton, Burlington & Southern Ontario
PLAY Advertising is located in Burlington and works extensively with businesses and organizations throughout Hamilton and the surrounding region. For clients looking for a branding agency, creative agency or graphic design partner in Hamilton, that means access to a nearby team with experience across both digital and traditional marketing.
We also work with organizations throughout Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Halton, the Hamilton area and throughout Southern Ontario. Geography doesn't limit the work.
Our creative capabilities can support organizations with audiences across Ontario, Canada and beyond.
Why Work With PLAY for Branding & Creative?
Strategy Comes First
We're a marketing agency, not simply a design studio. The creative begins with understanding what the business needs to communicate and what the audience needs to hear.
Ideas Before Decoration
Design should do more than make something attractive. The idea behind the work matters. We look for the concept, message or visual approach that gives the communication a reason to exist.
Creative + Production
PLAY can take an idea from concept through execution, including design, copywriting, photography, video, digital production and web development.
Digital + Traditional Experience
A brand needs to work everywhere. Our experience spans websites and social media through print, outdoor and traditional advertising.
More Than 25 Years of Experience
We've worked through enormous changes in media, technology and consumer behaviour. The tools have changed. The importance of a good idea hasn't.
Our Branding & Creative Process
01
Discover
We learn about the business, audience, objectives, competition and existing brand.
02
Define
We establish positioning, messaging and the strategic direction the creative needs to support.
03
Explore
Our creative team develops concepts, visual directions and ideas.
04
Refine
We work collaboratively to develop the strongest direction and ensure it works across the required applications.
05
Build
We create the identity, campaign or creative assets needed to put the idea into market.
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Apply
When required, PLAY can extend the creative across advertising, digital, social, content, web, print and other communications.
Frequently Asked Questions About Branding & Creative
What does a branding agency do?
A branding agency helps define how a business or organization presents itself to its audience. That can include brand strategy, positioning, messaging, naming, logo design, visual identity, brand standards and the creative applications used across advertising, websites, social media, content and other communications. PLAY combines branding with broader marketing, advertising, content, digital and web capabilities.
What's the difference between branding and graphic design?
Branding establishes the larger system that defines how an organization presents and communicates itself. Graphic design uses visual communication to create specific materials within that system. For example, a branding project might establish the logo, colours, typography, imagery and visual direction. Graphic design then applies those elements to advertisements, brochures, social content, presentations, signage and other materials.
Do we need a new brand or just a refresh?
Not every dated brand needs to be replaced. If the existing brand has strong recognition and still accurately represents the business, updating typography, colours, imagery, messaging or other elements may be enough. If the business has changed significantly or the existing brand no longer reflects its positioning, audience or ambitions, a more comprehensive rebrand may make sense. PLAY can assess the existing brand before recommending either approach.
How much does branding cost?
Branding costs vary considerably depending on scope. A visual refresh is different from developing a complete brand strategy, messaging platform, identity system and brand standards. We begin by understanding what the business actually needs before defining the scope and investment.
Does PLAY provide graphic design without a complete rebrand?
Yes. PLAY provides ongoing and project-based graphic design for businesses and organizations that already have an established brand. We can work within existing brand guidelines or help strengthen the visual system where necessary.
Can PLAY work with our existing brand standards?
Absolutely. Many established organizations already have comprehensive brand standards. PLAY can work within those standards to develop advertising campaigns, digital creative, content, presentations, collateral, websites and other communications.
Does PLAY provide photography and video?
Yes. Photography and video can be developed as part of a branding, advertising or content initiative. Our ability to connect creative direction with production helps maintain a consistent idea and visual style from concept through finished content.
Does PLAY offer branding and graphic design in Hamilton?
Yes. PLAY Advertising is based in Burlington and works extensively with businesses and organizations in Hamilton. We provide branding, creative development, graphic design, advertising, content and related marketing services for clients throughout Hamilton, Burlington and Southern Ontario.
Let's create something
Your brand should look like the business you want to be.
Maybe you're starting something new. Maybe your business has outgrown its current identity. Maybe your brand is strong but your marketing creative needs fresh thinking. Or maybe everything simply needs to work together better. Whatever the challenge, we'll start by understanding what you're trying to communicate. Then we'll find a creative way to say it.