Harbinger: ﻿The experts in launching brands, products and services in Canada.

WE’RE HIRING:
Account Coordinator

Want to join a growing and dynamic team? Harbinger Communications is hiring for an Account Coordinator position to help contribute to our evolving client and agency work. If you’re interested in taking on a fun and fast paced role; working across CPG, food and lifestyle brands, this may be the role for you! View the posting and submit through the link below.

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Join Our Influencer Database

We’re always on the hunt for new influencer partners to collaborate with our clients. If you’re interested in working with top-tier brands in the food, lifestyle, beauty, home décor and wellness industries, check out the link below to learn more!

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WE KNOW CANADA

Locally based

Immersed in national and regional culture, we have long-standing relationships and established best practices with media and influencers.

Optimize Your Debut

Ensuring that your point of difference is well defined, we hone the narratives that best introduce your brand, product or service to Canadians.

A Step Ahead

Invested in the short and long-game, we help you anticipate and navigate through local policy and regulations, trends and the competitive landscape.

Launching Your Food or Beverage Product Into Canada

With more than 20,000 new food and beverage products launching each year in Canada, there is definitely a need for information and education on how to launch successfully. As an agency that specializes in helping brands launch, Harbinger has the privilege of helping many optimize their debut in Canada.

Though many of the questions or needs a brand may have are as unique as the product or brand itself, we are asked many similar questions, particularly from our friends across the border, who want advice on coming to Canada. We thought it would be helpful to bring a panel of experts together and host a webinar, “Launching your food or beverage product into Canada” to shed light on a number of key areas for consideration

View an archive of the webinar by clicking below:

View Webinar

ENTER YOUR EMAIL

Don’t miss Harbinger’s quarterly newsletters! Subscribe now to our email list to receive key insights and updates on Canadian consumer behaviour and marketing trends, along with perspectives from different members of our team.

You can remove your consent at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any newsletter from Harbinger.

“Harbinger works with ConAgra on an on-going basis to drive awareness and education for many of our key brands.”

When we relaunched our Orville brand under a healthier platform and new formulation, they developed and executed a brilliant strategy that addressed key issues and opportunities and reached our target market with motivating reasons to try and buy. In absence of other marketing efforts, Harbinger’s initiatives drove sales to new heights and set us up for success in years to come.

– Head of Marketing, Canada
ConAgra
“Being a US based company, it is outstanding to have passionate experts in the Canadian market on our team.”

Harbinger is fast, flexible and importantly a great steward of our marketing dollars. As a medium sized company, we feel very valued by our account team and Harbinger leadership; they are always fast to follow up and pro-actively provide recommendations for our business. I would recommend this team to companies big and small as they will passionately engage with your business and focus on growing sales.

– Eric Wellinghoff,
Vice President, Marketing,
Nehemiah Manufacturing
“Harbinger was an integral partner for my portfolio of Kaz brands such as Braun, Vicks and Honeywell.”

They truly understood the importance of being nimble, working flexibly with me as a partner, and driving value for limited budgets. I always felt they were focused on ROI and would highly recommend them to any brand.

– Bhawna Sharma,
Former Brand Manager, Kaz
“As Evenflo’s marketing agency in Canada, Harbinger was truly an extension of our team.”

They have the ability to move the discussion to the critical conversations that will uncover what is needed to be successful, always keeping the end result in mind. Working with their team helped us achieve our goals and also exceed expectations. They took the time to become immersed in our business. They are trusted advisors, flexible, passionate and a joy to work with. I could not ask for more in a partner.

– Colin Nias,
Former Country Manager, evenflo

Find out what else clients are saying about us:

Evolving an established brand

Taste USA works with over 40 U.S. Cooperators to bring Canadians an amazing selection of fresh, high-quality U.S. food and beverage products – everything from table grapes to craft beer to barbecue sauce. To appeal to Canadian consumers as the next best choice to local products, Taste USA was in need of a brand overhaul. Harbinger worked closely with their team to update the brand name, tagline and identity, all while validating the changes through focus groups and online surveys. Results are proving successful as Taste USA continues to connect with local consumers and grow north of the border.

Canadian launch of plant-based egg product exceeds “eggspectations”

Eat Just Inc. introduced JUST Egg into the Canadian market and Harbinger was challenged with creating awareness and driving trial of this delicious, folded, plant-based egg product that cooks in your toaster and creates amazing breakfast sandwiches. Harbinger implemented a national media relations program and a three-tiered influencer relations strategy (macro, micro and nano influencers) that spread the word to both English and French consumers across the country through a variety of social platforms including TikTok. In just two short months, the campaign garnered millions of impressions and hundreds of thousands of engagements which helped to create loyal customers and solidify relationships with Canadian grocery retailers.

Canadian Packaging Launch

Milkadamia, a US-based non-dairy beverage, needed Canadian packaging for the launch of this product in Canada.

In addition to creating impactful, bilingual English/French artwork for Canadian Milkadamia products, Harbinger provided recommendations for French taglines and translation, to resonate with French Canadians. To meet Canadian labeling regulations, Harbinger gathered input from a Canadian registered dietitian, who is a Nutrition Facts Panel expert and ensured the new packaging met our client’s Canadian customers’ needs.

Convincing Canadians to Cheat on Meat

As a large plant-based masterbrand, Gardein has a strong variety of offerings for those looking to adopt more of a flexitarian diet. The brand needed a campaign that stood apart. Harbinger, along with the interagency team, developed a program that encouraged consumers to “Cheat on Meat” – incorporating plant based eating into at least one meal a week. We created and cheeky campaign that that included a cheat on meat micro-site and quiz; partnerships with relationship experts and influencers to encourage you to “cheat” and a full earned media campaign allowing it to all break out from the regular food story-lines. The campaign beat all KPI’s with massive engagement and millions of impressions, including earned reaction from top Canadian celebrities. It also drove trial with thousands of quiz completions and coupon downloads. Gardein continues to be a dominant force in the plant-based category – shifting the mindset of consumers across Canada.

A Fresh Start – DareFoods.com

With an expanding category and product portfolio and continued domestic and international growth, our client was looking to modernize their corporate websites. Their ambition: to improve user journey, enhance brand visibility and engagement potential and enable future customization of site design and functionality, much more efficiently. All this, while also retaining a multi-brand presence that would showcase the unique attributes and content appeal for different audience targets, throughout the site.

Showcasing unique brand personalities, celebrating food inspiration and product attributes and improving discovery and shop-ability of brands and products were priority for our content and site design strategy.

The site re-launch further enhanced the customer service access, site search and navigation between global sites and brand-owned social channels and third eCommerce. We worked closely with our clients to create a custom analytics reporting dashboard to provide broad and detailed reporting for relevant stakeholders, at their fingertips.

Driving Healthy Sales of California Prunes

Harbinger works with the California Prune Board promoting the versatility and health benefits of California Prunes. By leveraging our long-standing relationships with English and French dietitians, media and influencers, along with consumer sampling and a targeted digital ad campaign, Harbinger’s marketing campaign increased the sales of California prunes in Canada by 28%.

A Simple Strategy

A long-time favourite skin care brand of the UK, Harbinger drove awareness and trial for the brand’s debut into Canada. Key to a successful strategy, was understanding the balance between leveraging the brand heritage and love across the pond with beauty trends and needs of Canadian women today.

Dove – A Masterbrand with purpose and a platform to launch category leaders

To differentiate Dove, make it relevant in the cluttered beauty category and launch a host of products year over year, Harbinger, in partnership with a team of partners, worked to uncover and launch the brand’s purpose. For the past 15+ years, we have launched new initiatives and new products all under the key tenants of the brand to make girls and women feel good about themselves and keep consumers coming back to the brand again and again. Since the inception of the campaign and the brand’s entry into several personal care categories for women AND for men, we have seen a significant positive shift in brand perception and massive sales.

Latest Blog Posts

TikTok – Is time running out for the trendsetting social platform?

With social media constantly changing and being updated to enhance the user’s experience, these platforms are always under the microscope with rolling updates that face the love/hate critique of users and creators.

What’s Trending in Influencer Marketing

From de-influencing to paid subscription plans, we’ve rounded up the top 5 trends we’re seeing in influencer marketing right now.

Influencer Marketing 101: Selecting influencers for your next campaign

It takes solid rationale and strategy to select influencers who will achieve measurable ROI for your next campaign. Check out Harbinger’s top considerations when selecting social media influencers.

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Our Services

We provide strategic counsel and best-in-class execution to support your business objectives. We have a passion for launching brands, products and purpose in Canada.

Not sure where to start or curious about our service costs?
Take a look at some of our popular

PRODUCT MARKETING PACKAGES

Our marketing services include:

Launch Plans

Strategic planning, key message development and phasing, visual branding, website build and optimization, etc.

Multi-channel Content Strategy

Channel planning, Search, copywriting, translation, asset development, paid & earned partnerships, etc

Harbinger Design Lab

Design and creative including: graphic design, branding, exhibit and event design, media and sales kits, interactive presentations, video and photography.

Digital Creative & Advertising

Website development, copywriting, video production, email campaign strategy and display advertising.

Influencer Marketing

Spokesperson and ambassador identification, product seeding, reviews and endorsement, strategic collaborations, etc.

Earned Media Relations

Outreach strategy and execution, Spokesperson training, press release development and pitching, media kits, etc.

Social and Community Management

Social strategy planning, community development and engagement, content calendar and creative development, performance monitoring and optimization.

Corporate and Executive Profile Management

Corporate communications, social profile management, trade strategy, thought leadership planning, etc.

Activation

End to end vision planning and execution, staff training and on-site management, etc.

WE DELIVER

Transparency

We provide detailed and transparent visibility to project scope, budget and service commitment.

Measurable results

Aligning to your business objectives we establish and deliver on measurable targets.

Proven Results

We get brands to #1. Our results are proven and span independently owned businesses to established global brands.

Our DE&I Commitment

Harbinger is an equal opportunity company, committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in our business and in our community. We are committed to creating a culture where everyone can bring their true selves to work and embrace the collective team potential.

We believe to stay true to our commitment, we must constantly educate ourselves, share ideas and perspectives. As a team, we are committed to focusing on the following three areas, recognizing our efforts should be revisited, evaluated, and optimized regularly.

Ongoing training and education for staff
Employee recruitment and advancement
Community support and client counsel

Some of our initiatives to date have included: developing our annual education and celebration calendar, providing personal floater days for cultural celebrations, recruiting talent that is reflective of our diverse country, providing educational bursaries for students in support of DE&I and guiding and counselling our clients on their DE&I efforts.