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Kanda is a UK company whose unique platform lets contractors create quotes that include financing options for customers to manage renovation costs and ensure contractors get paid swiftly. However, Kanda had reached a growth hurdle when they reached out to Curious Public. Central to their challenge was getting existing customers to continue using the platform. They also wanted to improve how they engaged with and onboarded new clients.

We analyzed Kanda’s business model, marketing, and communications and found that the company needed better tools to help contractors explain the platform and financing options to their customers. For example, contractors loved Kanda’s direct billing feature but struggled to explain the financing options available — a value add for contractors’ clients. 

Curious Public interviewed Kanda’s customers and company insiders to unearth the opportunities and challenges for the business. The feedback confirmed the stumbling block for full platform adoption. We also discovered Kanda’s primary customers (contractors) fell into two distinct groups: younger contractors who were tech-savvy but unestablished with customers and older tradespeople more resistant to tech adoption but more established and trusted by customers.  Both groups are working with limited time, so any narrative created to empower them while promoting Kanda’s features had to be blunt, honest, and build trust quickly. 

We created a new brand narrative for Kanda positioning the company as a paperless alternative, focused on making contractors’ lives easier and securing work:

Send a quote. Offer finance in five minutes. Get paid no matter what. Win better work. Save time.

The new brand narratives and company insights we gave Kanda inspired the company’s website rebrand and gave additional strategic direction and marketing support. Since our initial project together, we have continued to support Kanda with content creation and media pitching to business, start-up and tech sector outlets.

Industry-led innovation is happening rapidly. Humber College recognizes that being on the inside track of innovation is critical to long-term success for students, faculty, businesses, and community partners. That’s why the college created its Centres of Innovation (COI) Network — five centres of innovation that bring together industry and community partners, college students and faculty to develop new solutions to industry challenges.

Humber engaged Curious Public to help them showcase the COI Network by crafting an impact report and accompanying social media campaign to communicate the unique value of the Network to its three key audiences: partners, students, and faculty.

Curious Public interviewed the college’s leadership and the COI Network stakeholders to unearth the nuances of each innovation centre’s value, impact, storytelling opportunities, and educational and economic benefits. We wrote the COI Network’s inaugural impact report from these insights, showcasing each centre’s innovation in real-world problem-solving and the direct wins for all stakeholders. We also crafted core narratives and key messages for the three COI Network audiences. Finally, Curious Public executed a social media strategy to promote the report’s release supported by key messages for each target audience.

The narrative solidified the COI Network’s unique value proposition for each audience: helping students master cutting-edge technologies, inspiring faculty to rekindle their passion for teaching, and helping partners revolutionize their operations. The Impact Report showcased how much the COI Network has already accomplished and set up benchmarks to measure its future success.

Since launching the COI Network, Humber College has been recognized as the second top research college in the country by Research InfoSource Inc.