Most dairy farms in Manitoba are small, family run farms. ‘All from a good place’ as a new brand platform incapsulates everything the dairy farmers do and leans in to the Manitoba pride felt throughout the province.
The world increasingly spins on an axis of data and information, propelled by infinite amounts of minutiae filling fields of server farms. But somewhere between those 1s and the 0s are people who make rational and irrational decisions every minute of the day. It’s Humanity’s goal to find those spaces and uncover the humans behind the numbers.
The brand transformation agency was founded in 2020 with the goal of creating a truly unique offering in the ad space. Its president and CCO, Carolyn Shaw, is an experienced agency creative director and its CSO and head of client success, Ryan Hughes, has over 20 years of experience applying behavioural sciences to brand strategy and advertising.
They built Humanity with the goal of focusing on the core human pursuit of wellbeing, using a diverse and scientific approach. At the agency’s core is the Wellbeing Framework, a trademarked approach developed by Shaw and Hughes that is rooted in applied behavioural science with the goal of unlocking how someone thinks, not what they think. “We are driven by the idea that brands can and should play an important role in supporting human wellbeing,” Shaw explains. Ensuring the work that ensues is representative of all humans is the agency’s Unity unit, a team of advisors that brings diverse voices and perspectives to all of the agency’s work.
For their first Canadian created campaign, Botox Cosmetic leaned into the insight that while aging is out of our control, we can control how we age and live more confidently when we are in control.
Wellbeing is a broad term, and the agency gave it a workout with its client Botox Cosmetic. The brand is a household name that needs no explanation, but it was also primarily a B2B brand when it came to sales and marketing.
The company presented Humanity with a compelling challenge: to build a new, consumer-facing presence for Canadian consumers using local insights and cultural nuance. Through behavioural, quantitative and qualitative market research, Humanity uncovered a common benefit powerful enough to unite all consumers: while aging is entirely out of our control, how we age is not.
The insight birthed a new brand platform called “Free to be me,” based on the idea being that when you are your most confident self, you free yourself to be who you really are.
Humanity was able to explore an entirely different side of wellbeing with the Dairy Farmers of Manitoba (DFM). The organisation had been in the early phases of exploring a new logo, believing its brand image no longer served its purpose, when it discovered Humanity and its unique methodology.
The strategic Wellbeing Framework led to a better understanding of the role milk plays in consumer’s lives. With this insight, a new brand platform was created, along with a completely new look to differentiate Fairlife within the Canadian ultra filtered milk category.
The agency put the Wellbeing Framework to work, creating a new brand strategy using a process that involved purpose modelling, stakeholder and board alignment, semiotic and focus group testing; and the development of a new brand positioning statement. Based on the reality that farms are run by humans and their families, and that legacies and livelihoods are at stake, the positioning statement was born: “Family is at the heart of Manitoba dairy farms.” Every aspect of the brand reflects it: the design speaks to the brand’s 50-year heritage; the forward-facing cow represents animal care and the future. The curved ‘smile’ taps into the notion of ‘friendly Manitoba’ and pride of place. The brand platform ‘All from a good place’, speaks to everything dairy farmers do.
For the new Spatula Foods brand identity, the concept was to focus attention on the U in the logo. The U represents a bowl, a pot, a pan or a plate as a key ingredient of the brand’s visual identity, while also focusing on the real hero creating chef perfected meals – you.
It’s a fantastic example of what Shaw and Hughes say is their human-centric approach that helps brands understand how people think, not just what they think. They are especially excited to apply the methodology to a new client that is apt for the agency’s own brand: the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
The humans of Humanity.
It’s the “perfect fit for Humanity,” says Shaw and says the team is thrilled to be diving deep into and using behavioural science based research methods to really understand what human rights mean to Canadians. Humanity did similar work in this space when they were awarded a national anti-racism campaign with the Canadian government.
And what is more human than that?
CONTACT:
Carolyn Shaw
President, CCO
carolyn.shaw@humanityagency.com
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