Pat Carito: Rebrand Is a Toronto Based Creative Firm Focused On Building World-class Brands

Rebrand is a Toronto based creative firm focused on building world-class brands through strategy, design, storytelling, digital, packaging, video and branded environments.

Rebrand helps companies and organizations make their products, services and offerings better understood, more valued and desirable.

We’re a collaborative, full-service firm that flexes and shifts to meet the needs of our clients. Our award winning creative team is nimble, highly creative and fast, so you can depend on effective solutions to your marketing and communications challenges. 

Tell us about yourself? 

I’m a multidisciplinary creative director with over 25 years experience working for global brands and startups, and over 15 years in creative, design leadership roles. I’ve been fortunate to work with many exceptionally talented people both agency and client side. My hybrid background enables me to operate at the intersection of brand strategy, creativity and technology. I’m able to deploy the right blend of strategic, storytelling and systems thinking to solve brand and business problems in culturally impactful and commercially effective ways – all with an earned-first mindset.

After spending most of my early career at leading agencies in such as, Foote Cone and Belding, Ogilvy’s, Banfield & Seguin and other leading advertising and design firms across Canada, I’ve spent the last 15 or so years in Toronto – where I’m now founder and a creative principle at Rebrand, a brand strategy and creative design firm.

I’ve worked on integrated marketing programs, created campaigns and designed brand identity systems for a diverse range of clients and industries such as CirclePharma a leading African generic pharmaceutical company, Novartis, British Tourism Authority, Hamilton International Airport, Ciba Vision, Johnson & Johnson, Mead Johnson, Cybermation, Pharmaceutical Association of Canada, JDS Uniphase, Bally Shoes International, Imperial Tobacco Canada, Godin Guitars and many other entities. 

If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?

Advice for myself: It’s about being persistent and never give up on what you believe. Don’t take yourself too seriously neither, enjoy the ride and have fun. 

What problem does your business solve? 

Essentially, we help solve our client’s marketing and communication challenges. We’re a diverse team of creative problem solvers, built to meet the challenges of business. Through design thinking we create, renovate brands and move businesses, people and the world forward. We employed different methodologies depending on the program objectives and scope, from quick tactical plays to full blown campaigns across different media. Ultimately, it’s about reaching our client’s business objectives by delivering tangible results.

 What is the inspiration behind your business? 

The inspiration and catalyst for my business is the phrase “Creating Desire”. Our business is focused on creating brand-led growth for our clients through, coherent branding platforms and identity systems, designed to give brands increased audience engagement, unique personality with clear presence in the marketplace.

Along with the tools needed to reach the targeted audiences across every touchpoint from traditional to digital advertising medias. All our services are aimed at creating greater desire for our client’s products or services.

What is your magic sauce? 

Our branding process and methods were acquired through years of trial and error.

We usually start with market research to determine if there are any holes (opportunities) in the marketplace that need to be filled, we then build a strategy to outline our plan, the fun part is bringing the brand to life with creative assets, we then broadcast the messages across relevant media to engage audiences.

Ultimately, it’s about helping clients reach their business goals and seeing them succeed is what brings the most joy.

In a world of generic promotional tactics, our philosophy and focus is on creating brands that separate client’s product/services from the herd, this, requires something more. Ambition. Heart. Soul. Curiosity. Nuance. Finesse. Courage. It also needs to bring an air of authenticity by delivering on their promise.

Our team is relentless in finding impactful creative solutions that work. We are totally committed to ensuring our clients and their business objectives are met with clarity, purpose, relevance, and ultimately drive a wider audience engagement to its products or services.

By utilizing the full scope of our expertise in the form of strategy, market insights, award-winning design and creative, and a list of success stories as long as our arm, we will create not only a compelling brand, but a compelling brand that stands head and shoulders above all others. 

What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve? 

Our intent is to continue to create positive brand vibes and messages for our clients. Creativity drives brand success. Highly creative brands, consistently outperform their peers.

Brand led growth will be on top of our agenda for the next five years and finding innovative ways for brands to thrive in a increasingly competitive world. We are seeing successful brands embed their messages in stories that touch, thrill, or amuse their target audiences at all brand touchpoint. Increasingly, consumers also expect their favorite brands to create value beyond product benefits. This is where we come in.

While a compelling story may get the attention of the audience, winning loyalty requires additional efforts from brand leaders.

The times are changing. Consumers now jump from brand to brand, product to product, and site to site at a flick of their wrists. At the same time, brand relevance remains high. Brands are beacons of trust. The more choices consumers have, the more important these beacons become.

We want to be a beacon for our clients branding needs with viable solutions that work, as markets evolve in time. 

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?

You can’t run before you walk and learning from our mistakes has provided the best experience. It’s not always a clear or straight path and past experiences intuitively help us determine what will work or what won’t.

Market research helps, but does not always provide a clear path, this where experience wins over research.

We love challenges and finding the best solution to a given marketing or branding problem is what gives us purpose to be in this field. Establishing trust with clients, especially the ones that are not in tune with the branding process has been challenging. This at times has become our largest hurdle. 

How do people get involved/buy into your vision?

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us, and let’s arrange an informal chat to talk about your brand challenges and goals or any other requirements.

I suggest having a look at our work at https://rebrand.ca and then contact us at [email protected].
Looking forward to hearing from you. Cheers!