Born in a home office, Calgary-based Strut Creative has grown into international player in web marketing
Many people have experienced working from home for the first time, but not Aaron Salus and Natalie Selinger, who founded Strut Creative 20 years ago in Selinger’s spare bedroom.
Today the company is housed in attractive space on the ground floor of the office building on the corner of 2nd Street and
17th Avenue S.W., and has a staff of 20 serving local, national and international clients.
Strut worked out of space above Cafe Beano on 17th Avenue, in Kipling Square, in Sunalta, and in Inglewood before settling into its current location six years ago.
Selinger left for a time to raise a family but came back to the company as a much-needed operations manager in 2008. By that time, Salus was joined by two new partners; managing director Chris Mcphail and creative strategist Russ Bugera.
The staff has been used to working remotely with clients — it’s now second nature to hold meetings, make presentations and be involved in brand strategy workshops with clients — they just never could have imagined it would become a way of life overnight.
They have long been communicating with an impressive stable of clients in Toronto, Ottawa, the U.S., Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Australia.
Many of these contacts are a result of the good job it has done handling Calgary companies with overseas divisions.
A good example is Shell Canada. Strut has worked with the Calgary office for the past 17 years and, thanks to the success of Shell’s 100th anniversary here, it was invited to be one of the brand international agencies working with Shell Global and was put on the team in London and the Netherlands. Later, Strut was invited to work with Shell Energy North America based in Houston. Strut is now working on a growing number of initiatives for the growing Shell Energy brand, designed to support their customers in the transition toward a low-carbon future.
Another Shell anniversary project was to create its Classroom Energy Diet Challenge, an across-canada initiative with Canadian Geographic to teach people to be more responsible in energy matters.
Salus says Canadian Geographic was a dream to work with and since that time has developed into a major account, and together they have worked on dozens of projects over the past 10 years.
Groundbreaking national engagement programs include the Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada, The Great Trail Treasure Hunt, the Energy IQ Literacy Program, and 10,000 Changes — Canada’s Commitment to Rethink Plastics, and Salus says there are always two or three others being created at any time.
“Strut has carved out a unique position in the Canadian communication landscape,” Canadian Geographic publisher Giles Gagnier says. “It has constantly delivered beyond our expectations, so much so that the relationship has evolved from one of a company that supplies services to one of our most valued business relationships.”
TC Energy is another account that has meant communicating with international offices trilingually in Canada, North America and Mexico, collaborating with its team to help reimagine and rebrand their community investment effort as their Build Strong program. Locally, one of Strut’s newer accounts is Husky Energy, which Strut is helping to strengthen its brand and launch new initiatives such as the innovative Huskygives employee giving program rolled out earlier this year.
Reminiscing on the agency’s 20 years in this city, Salus says, “Calgary has been a great home for us. There’s a strong talent here and companies make a real investment in their communications. But it’s also a good base to service our national and international clients; that work has helped us cope with Alberta’s boom and bust cycles.”
NOTES
Hope is a state of mind that expects positive outcomes; happenings that can be accelerated with a lot of encouragement and drive. That’s what you will find in the Kensington retail district where Business Improvement Area (BIA) executive director Annie Macinnis has been working to entice people to support local businesses. The BIA has installed new banners, partnered on a spectacular mural that spans five buildings, incentivized businesses to create fresh window displays and introduced 16 new pop-up patios to encourage social distancing.