This award celebrates the creativity and ingenuity that businesses used to reach and connect with customers throughout 2022. The nominees launched new ways to communicate with customers, built relationships, and sought opportunity in unexpected places.

Learn what our 2022 Opportunity Seekers Creators did to promote and market their businesses differently, in their own words.

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Horizon Maritime Services Ltd.
“Horizon understands digital technology and the needs of the marine industry. Through our experience and monitoring we identified a growing industry need to keep crews and vessels offshore, while providing remote support for workers living in harsh conditions for longer periods of time. The Connected Worker project is developing technology that allows offshore crews to access information, data, and support from onshore throughout the vessel’s steel structure and confined spaces. In addition to receiving information from onshore, the interface will also capture data on the Connected Worker position, activities and health, wellness, and performance, again, throughout the vessel. This means crew and vessels can remain operational by having the onshore support to help resolve issues in real time without having to return to shore. This creates cost efficiencies and reduces GHG emissions. It enhances the offshore crew by providing more onshore support to meet the growing demands and knowledge of more complex systems and it helps to support their wellness and safety with the increasing scope of their work.

The commercial opportunity for the Connected Worker project is to provide a service for the design, installation, and operation of a digital system to allow marine crews to be interfaced with several applications supporting their tasks and activities in remote offshore locations. Currently in Atlantic Canada, there is no entity providing this service for the marine industry vessel and offshore platform crews. This opportunity will lead to a future Center of Excellence for Remote Monitoring including shorebase Connected Worker support in St. John’s, positioning Atlantic Canada as a global leader.

The project services and applications are being developed by Kinduct who leads the offshore wellness and ShipReality who leads the Mixed Reality and Virtual Reality support for onshore expert services. The collaboration of the project participants is key to the success of digital technology in the marine industry.”

Idea Factory
“For over a decade, we’ve seen the steady growth of the technology sector in Newfoundland & Labrador. The pandemic only expedited the importance the sector will have on the future of our city, and our province. As an agency, we saw an opportunity to become the go-to agency for the sector by becoming experts in the things that matter most to the businesses within it – lead generation, content production, digital marketing strategies, and more.
 
In order to grow our reputation within the sector, we put a business development focus on establishing relationships with the industry associations in the tech sector including techNL, Bounce Health, and Canada’s Ocean Supercluster to name a few. Working with these organizations allowed us to build relationships with their members, and in-turn, build up our client roster of tech. Additionally, we sponsored a number of industry events, provided pro-bono support to a dozen start-ups and supported charity initiatives. The conscious efforts made to make connections in the sector, paid off in spades.”
 
Piatto Pizzeria + Enoteca
“Our sales strategy for expanding our Piatto at Home offering and opening a wholesale production facility was to build on relationships. Our relationships run deep and are highly valued by the company. For example, Piatto has developed strong relationships with our customers who have come to know and trust our offerings and who are willing to try something new from Piatto, even from previously unfamiliar purchase points such as their local grocery or convenience store. Additionally, we have built trusted relationships with our suppliers in a time when food and equipment shortages have been the norm. Our suppliers have worked endlessly with us to ensure minimum delays and to optimize smooth operations and we are very appreciative of their efforts. Finally, we value the relationships we have developed with local grocery and convenience chains; without their trust and support we would not have been able to expand our offerings at the pace we have been able to achieve. We have worked hard for the last 12 years to build strong, respectful and lasting relationships with all our partners and believe the mutual support that has emerged has been beneficial for all.

We have also committed a strong effort to further develop our communication channels through an expanded social media presence and have integrated more video content to share our increased offerings, the uniqueness of new products and the variety of places now available to purchase and enjoy Piatto products.

In times such as we have experienced in the last 2 years, the strength of relationships, expanded communications and a commitment to be the very best we can be for our customers has helped us in immeasurable ways to progress. We are grateful for the trust our customers continue to place in us and we are committed to delivering an exceptional product and customer experience through a growing variety of delivery models.”
 
StaycationNL
“When The pandemic hit the whole world and travel was restricted. As a traveler, I immediately pivoted to focus on travel in our own province. Seeking out unique stays and hidden gems in my home province of NL we were on a mission to re discover and explore our own back yard. We started telling stories about our travels and asking our FB friends about places to visit. We invited businesses mainly in the tourism industry to share their information as well. Businesses feared for the future and prepared for the worst. StaycationNL became a community that supported local business and inspired the people of our province to move around and explore what we already had in our own backyard. StaycationNL opened our own eyes to the beauty of our own province and made people realize the many incredible vacation opportunities we have here at home. It stimulated our economy in a very uncertain time by telling stories about our province through experiences with local businesses and communities. Rediscovering hiking, entertainment, new restaurants and inspiring others to get down into small town NL and go on an adventure! Being ambassadors for our province involves promoting all things NL. This includes our culture and heritage, our incredible natural batty, our cuisine, music and our unique dialect and colourful personalities. StaycationNL has encompassed the true Newfoundlander and Labradorian with its local vibe that resonates with travelers. Its a tool that is educational, informative and fun! 

Our strategy has been to expose hidden gems and inspire people to move around our province to support local and soak up the best scenery and experiences in our own province. A staycation is good for the soul. Social marketing is THE new marketing. It’s about telling stories about experiences. When people see you having fun and experiencing something that they want it resonates with them. We get out there! Tell people about new hiking spots, new businesses and new adventures! We meet locals and operators in the real world. We are tourists JUST LIKE YOU! Its our province in real time. A virtual vacation if you will.”
 
Studio VERSŌ
“In October 2021, Studio VERSŌ opened their doors with an immense challenge—recruiting individuals into a fitness space during a global pandemic, when at-home workouts had reached an all time peak.
How do you stand out in a saturated market? You do things differently. Instead of the typical and expected in-studio workout advertisements, VERSŌ got creative. In collaboration with international award-winning photographer Dave Howells, director Justin Oakey, and videographer Cecil Johnson, VERSŌ worked to portray their brand in a way Newfoundlanders would connect with. So they piled stationary bikes and ergs into a minivan and brought them to some of the most picturesque areas of our province—cliffs in Flat Rock, barrens in Witless Bay, and fishing stages in Quidi Vidi gut. The result? Unexpected photography and video that created a buzz all around our island.

From there VERSŌ hit the ground running. Over the past year we have strategically promoted our business and connected with our target market through print, social media, video, billboard, internal and external events, local collaborations, and direct marketing. Through adapting an out-of-the-box approach we grabbed the attention of our target market.”
 
Whelan Wellness
“I believe that the pandemic taught us all to better value our time. People no longer want to spend any extra time doing things that don’t serve them. They want quality access to health and wellness content on their own time and their own merit. The online space allowed me to not just connect with people within a certain radius of a gym, but instead I was able to reach, connect with, and impact people globally. We have thousands of members across nine countries currently.

We began in 2020 with 121 members, today we have over 3,000. We continue to grow and expand our reach all in the name of helping people grow into their best selves and gain the confidence, excitement, and lust for life that they deserve, and all the success that comes with that.”

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Learn more about these and many other amazing 2022 Business Resilience Awards nominees here.