Blog | Hot Tomali Communications Inc.®

Hot Tomali Finding Our Flow

Nicolb — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 22:57:54 +0000

This may come as a surprise, but most of us at Hot Tomali spend the majority of our day sitting at our desks, typing away. Sure, this infographic got us to start sitting at a 135° angle, but that short walk from our desk to the fridge during lunch doesn’t actually count as “exercise”.

That is not to say that many of our employees don’t exercise outside of work hours (umm, Iron Man, remember?), but a little boost during working hours can only help lift everyone’s spirits.

In came Sharan of Yoga On The Flow, a (wonderful, energetic, and most importantly — patient) mobile therapeutic yoga instructor who helped us incorporate yoga into our every day lives — all from the comfort of our office chairs. Now, whether we’re at our desk or in a meeting, we can secretly practice our Awareness Pose, or stretch out our hip flexors, hamstrings, shoulders, knees, feet, neck… well, you get the point.

According to Sharan, there are a multitude of benefits that will follow if we stick to a “strict” stretching routine at our desks:

Benefits for Employees:

Reduced stress and anxiety
Increased energy and decreased fatigue
Improved memory, focus, and concentration
Stronger muscles
Increased flexibility
Improved posture
Improved overall health
Decreased negative outlook or depression

Work just a got a whole lot easier.

And while many of us looked like fish out of water, like all good things, it just takes time, practice, and a little bit of inner peace. Speaking of inner peace, check out the faces of Hot Tomalian Nirvana:

“Awareness Pose” – 2 minutes a day to get a straight back and perfect posture. (Inhale) Roll your shoulders back, (exhale) lift your sternum.

Hot Tomali Launches PSA for City of Vancouver

Kyle Stewart — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:49:16 +0000

We don’t often blow our own trumpets or celebrate the success of projects as much as we should. But this week, Hot Tomali has launched another exciting project. Working collaboratively with the City of Vancouver, we’ve developed a road safety campaign aimed at reducing the volume of road traffic accidents within Vancouver. Road safety is a serious issue here in Vancouver, and, statistically speaking, we live in one of the most dangerous cities in Canada. Around 620 pedestrians injured in traffic collisions each year. The “People are Fragile” campaign aims to reduce that number by highlighting the consequences of inconsiderate and incorrect behaviour.

The result: an intriguing, direct campaign targeting pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists via out-of-home media that is supported online. We also created some clever street writing at some hot spots throughout the city.

This campaign is just part of a long-term commitment to make Vancouver a safer city. You may notice countdown lights in the top 10 accident locations and the Vancouver police department handing out an increased amount of $100 tickets for jaywalking. So watch out!

Enough talk; here’s some of the work.

There have been a number of Press Releases on the campaign of late:

Vancouver sun – article
Metro News – article
24 Hour – article

The value of web design, and how you can significantly improve your blog traffic.

Josh Bluman — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:03:05 +0000

It never fails to surprise us how design can have such a strong impact on a site’s performance. Recently we had the opportunity to do a complete redesign for one of our client’s blogs: americanehr.com/blog.

The legacy blog, which always produced quality niche content, was launched very rapidly with little planning and design thought.

Legacy Blog Design:

With this opportunity, and a team full of ideas, we went through our standard process: identifying the blog’s goals, defining the audience, and documenting everything we felt could improve the blog’s performance.

Here are the key changes resulting from this process:

Design overhaul to illustrate authority and importance
Highlight featured posts to focus discussion around hot topics
Place emphasis on blog contributors to build credibility
Place more emphasis on comments to facilitate content creation and reader ownership
Associate an image with each post to stimulate interest
Simplify post categories associated for streamlined topic navigation
Improve the blog’s structure for better search engine optimization
Add social share options (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to improve reach

New Blog Design:

Only one month after launching the new blog, the number of pageviews had almost doubled, while visitors maintained a strong average time on the site. Even several months after the blog’s launch, traffic has been higher than ever before.

This occurred with no additional promotion, the same content contributors, and the same post frequency — the only change being the new design. Now the AmericanEHR blog, which was once an undervalued area of the site, is one of the top performing and key selling features of the program, facilitating the community’s growth.

Hot Tomali Strikes Gold at the ADCC Awards

Thomas Stringham — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 19:38:24 +0000

Hot Tomali has received two national honours at the Advertising and Design Club of Canada’s 2011 Directions Awards. The event was held at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Koemer Hall in Toronto, Ontario on November 3. Canada’s longest running advertising awards show, ADCC’s awards began in 1949 and have been going strong ever since.

The two awards received by Hot Tomali were:

Advertising Broadcast Radio Campaign Gold: “Freeze the Moment” for 7-Eleven’s Slurpee
Advertising Posters Campaign Merit: “Abracadabera/Hasta La Vista/Bye Bye” for Seicoat

View the ADCC Directions Winners online

Ed Norton’s Campaign for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust

Thomas Stringham — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 23:34:10 +0000

Hot Tomali is proud to announce our support for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT). This charity was formed by Academy Award-nominated actor Edward Norton, as part of a group fundraising effort in collaboration with the New York Marathon. Last year 30 runners, including Edward Norton, ran the New York Marathon to raise money for the MWCT and the campaign was a success — they raised over $1.2 million! The money raised is used to protect the legendary ecosystems and astounding biodiversity of East Africa by promoting conservations that directly benefits local Maasai communities.

The MWCT Watering Hole Party

Hot Tomali has completed a pro bono ad campaign (see the first ad above) as part of our involvement. Our internal goal is to raise a minimum of $12,000 to enable MWCT to build a watering hole that will attract and sustain threatened wildlife, such as elephants and lions, on their protected land and help keep them safe from poachers.

We’re hosting a fundraiser, the MWCT Watering Hole Party, at 6:00 pm on Friday, October 14, 2011, featuring live music, drinks, and a mix of people representing the very best of Vancouver’s marketing and design community. Click here to RSVP on Facebook.

As part of our fundraising, many great items are being donated by our clients and local businesses to be auctioned off, with all funds raised going to MWCT.

Place your bids here! Hot Tomali MWCT Charity Auction

Music by:

Top Less Gay Love Tekno Party
Kristie Yung
DJ Blaze Kik

Prizes generously donated by:


Shot Glass Pack Shot Glass Pack Coffee Mug Set Coffee Mug Set Sports Pack XBox360 Shooter Pack XBox360 Sports Pack Playstation3 Shooter Pack Playstation3 Adventure Game Pack XBox360 Adventure Game Pack Playstation3 PC Gamer Pack Family Pack Wii	1 Health Assessment ($75 value)	Bracken Vest ($150 value)

	Earrings: Red Crystal Tear Drop Earrings Silver Crystal Tear Drop Earrings Dark Silver Crystal Tear Drop Earrings	Icebreaker Merino Wool gear: Mens & Womens

1 Loaf, Banana Bread	One night stay at the resort for 2, VIP wine tasting for 2 and two bottles of wine.	Ski Vacation Package for Two

SPUD gift basket	$100 Catering Gift Certificate	3-Month Fitness Pass 3-Month Fitness Pass Donated by SNFW Howe St. location

Speakout Nokia 2720 phone 7-Eleven gift cards	Gift Basket ($100 value)	4 weeks of Semi-Private Therapeutic Yoga classes at The Network Hub ($200 value)

Mixed Crate of 12 BC Bud Cooking Sauce $20 Gift Certificates x 2	Ticket to the Marketing Mastery Summit ($495 value) Chocolate Tasting 101 Class for 2 People and 2 Boxes of chocolate from Xoxolat ($90 value) 2 Tickets to the Murders, Mysteries and Mayhem Halloween Tour ($52 value)	Gift Basket ($50 value)

1 Month Membership at Gracie Barra Vancouver – Unlimited Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Boxing & Mui Thai ($150 value)	Sakura in Aqua Clutch ($65 value)	2 hour Design Consultation ($300 value)

GUESS Seductive Eau De Toilette ($69.00 Value) Chloé Love Eau Intense Eau De Parfum Intense ($125.00 Value) Kiehl’s Limited Edition New York Heritage Collection ($60.00 Value)	Rice giftbags

Weekly Trivia Night

We also have draws planned at several upcoming trivia nights at the Lamplighter and Academic, so if you can, be sure to come check those out.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQWR59vQsng&feature=player_embedded

As part of Ed Norton’s team, Thomas Stringham, Hot Tomali’s president and creative director, and Scott Maddox, art director, will be running in the New York Marathon on November 6, 2011. If you would like to make a donation directly through the charity’s web partner, Crowdrise, you may do so by following one of the links below:

Thomas Stringham’s MWCT Crowdrise Page
Scott Maddox’s MWCT Crowdrise Page

If you are interested in donating any items for use in the auction, or if you would like to be added to the guest list for the MWCT Watering Hole Party on Oct. 14, please contact our office manager, Sabrina Wagner.