It's a big week for transit and sustainable cities in New York Time's T magazine. No less than five different travel and transportation innovations were mentioned in this travel issue. Teague's barebones stripped-down vision for high fuel efficiency flying -

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I am fond of saying that in today's Canadian market, if it ain't multicultural it ain't mainstream. But the more multicultural our markets are, surely the more fragmented they become? Not so. The way I see it, it's not our

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When I talk to my colleagues in the multicultural marketing and advertising industry, I hear the same cries of pain, the same complaints, the same scars of battles lost and I've been hearing them for a few years. We bemoan

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Our creative for Züm, Brampton's new rapid transit service is on the road and in the press with some very positive attention - and in the Toronto Star and the Metro. As we like to say, we just make ideas.

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For S Asians, bragging rights around the joy of travel are directly connected to the sights and sounds of home and family. We tap into this visceral connection with "home" in our latest spot - for TD Visa First Class.

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In April 2010, I was interviewed by Marc Montgomery of CBC's The Link on why so much multicultural work is so poorly made and why it so often misses the point. There are a few reasons and I touch on

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When did merely being brown qualify anyone to judge multicultural advertising? Do clients do this with mainstream ads? Do they ask random white folks if their multimillion dollar campaign works? And then, do they yank it?

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Full disclosure: this campaign was my brother's work.(Russell Barrett - at the time Executive Creative Director at Bates in India - is now at Bartle Bogle Hegarty Mumbai in the same role).Warning: 110 commercials. Relax, they're about 10 secs each.Ok,

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At first sight, this Eid ul Fitr ad from Levis Indonesia, seems relatively straightforward. The kind of harmless but useless festival advertising that most banks in Canada like to do, for instance. The headline is what you'd expect of just

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It's Ramadan again and No Frills the Canadian discount supermarket is running a commercial advertising some halal specials. They've picked the foods perfunctorily to start with - halal chicken, ground beef, etc.They aren't promoting or advertising the most common and

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This outstanding video from TED may be one of the most insightful presentations I've heard on the relationship between culture and consumer choice. Sheena Iyengar dispenses with the consumer focus group and leaves behind some of the more obsolete but

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A simple smart advertising campaign can go a long way towards converting drivers to riders. Luck led me to this posting on sustainable urban transportation blog, The City Fix. One campaign in particular caught my eye - the comparative, good

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Züm is Brampton Transit's new bus rapid transit brand, carefully developed through a year-long process that included stakeholder interviews, best practice reviews and town council approvals. Appropriately enough for a transit service, Züm has an origin and a destination. Züm

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For years, I've been shouting (I believe that's the polite word) into the wind that we need to create a movement of transit supporters. It's only when riders who care passionately are recognized, thanked and recruited that true conversion really

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I know we're well past the 2008 US election but good design - and its endangered cousin, good multicultural design - lives on. Take a look at this stunningly designed 08 graphic that rises above and beyond the mono-cultural, duochromatic,

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Are Torontonians lucky to have the TTC? Or is it the other way around? In 2005, Spacing magazine introduced a series of buttons commemorating Toronto's subway lines - featuring tiles and type unique to each of the stations. Believe it

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TD Canada Trust continues to make Canadian South Asians feel welcome, as our latest spot for them shows. The premise here is equally simple and incredibly relevant - i.e. TD makes mortgages comfortable, desi style. Instead of the anxiety of

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I am going to break an longstanding rule of mine and post 2 commercials made by Barrett and Welsh - in a row. The reason? They're good. And they represent a substantial commitment to the South Asian community in Canada

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