TORONTO—While a recession can be a scary time to launch a new business, a sour economy can also offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to meet a market’s changing needs head on. That’s part of the thinking behind the launch of Brio Brands, a new Toronto-based branding agency co-founded by Annie Gaudreault and Sharon Kirby. 

Dori Burchat, Sharon Kirby and Annie Gaudreault represent new Toronto agency Brio Brands

“We’re very optimistic because our proposition is geared to customers worried about value,” Gaudreault says. “We offer big agency expertise with the flexibility of a small agency.”

Between them, Gaudreault and Kirby have over 25 years of experience on both the client and agency sides of the advertising business, having worked with a variety of major brands including Stouffer’s, Swiss Chalet, Four Seasons, Tim Horton’s and Cadbury. They first met at Russell Branding, where Gaudreault was a principal, and the duo plan on leveraging their extensive networks to attract new clients. “We’re not a cold calling business,” Kirby says.

Gaudreault and Kirby have hired Dori Burchat as design director. The branding veteran has more than 20 years of design experience at companies such as Loblaws, FutureBrand and Anthem.

Brio plans to farm out much of the nitty-gritty work to freelancers. While this “virtual agency” model will allow Brio to keep overheads low, Gaudreault says it’s “not necessarily about cost but about having appropriate talents for appropriate jobs. There are a variety of skill sets required and we don’t want to provide anything but senior talent.”

The name Brio was chosen because “we wanted a name that reflected our personalities,” Gaudreault says. “It’s all about engagement. It means ‘with purpose.’”

As the new agency was just announced last week, they are still ironing out some wrinkles. Using Flash animation, the online version of firm’s logo was cropped too far to the left, cutting off part of letter “o” so the word looks like “Bric” instead of “Brio.” “It’s something we’re in the process of fixing,” Gaudreault says. “We got a little too excited. It’s part of our nature. I’m French, you know. We talk with our hands a lot and get a little too animated. The same happened with the logo.” Contact: www.briobrands.com