Tony Wanless

Lululemon’s recent Great Pants Disaster was a brilliant example of guerilla marketing that more than worked. I was going to write this column about the great Lululemon crisis, but then wondered, really, how much can you say about pants? Apparently, quite a bit. Have pants ever had so much publicity? Newspapers...

The complaints about Chinese-only signs in Richmond will fade as the Chinese shop owners compete for customers. My home turf is the East Side of Vancouver, whose main street is Kingsway, a veritable riot of languages that is reflected by the signs on all the shops and restaurants that line the...

Fortress Paper has sold off its cash-rich wallpaper division to finance its movement into cellulose fabrics. What is the always adventurous CEO Chad Wasilenkoff up to now? Fortress Paper, which began as a specialty maker of banknotes and security papers, has put in the final piece of its business model innovation...

Ballard Power Systems, which began developing fuel cells as alternative energy for automobiles but moved into other areas, is at it again under a new agreement. It’s heartening to see that Ballard Power Systems is back in the game of using its fuel cells in automobiles. Ballard announced this week that...

The Alberta economy is reeling but we in BC shouldn’t be secretly happy that the province is getting its comeuppance. When they hurt, we will too. I don’t want to seem gleeful, which would definitely be schadenfreude, but oil-rich Alberta’s self-described exalted place at the head of the Canadian economy...

A a new pension plan for BC residents who don’t have one will help relieve fears of future poverty among BC’s large group of independent workers and small business employees. When the BC government announced yesterday that it was creating group pension plans for BC workers, there was some joy...

There appears to be a tiny prospect of peace in the continuing war between fossil-fuel based industries (i.e. oil) and advocates of a greater role for cleantech in the energy industry. A recent report by the Alberta-based Pembina Institute called for a federal clean-energy plan to encourage growth of emerging...

The recent bankruptcy filing by Vancouver’s D&M Publishing, best known for its Douglas & McIntyre imprint, last October was seen as another blow to a publishing industry in turmoil. A shift to e-books and the reading on tablets were seen as factors in the publisher’s downfall, as it has been for...

In January, Credential Financial Inc., the national online brokerage and investment service for Canada’s credit unions, launched a self-clearing service to greatly expand the financial services it provides. The service includes all the mechanics of trading and processing – the...

The depth of creative talent in Vancouver was acknowledged in New York last week when Tourism Vancouver and creative agency SmashLAB took home an international award for digital marketing. Tourism Vancouver has scored many coups with its way-out-there marketing (bringing the Olympics to Vancouver—now that was a Big Idea!). Now it...

Almost every coffee conversation in Vancouver is about how there’s not enough work to go around for all the talent in Vancouver. It’s a West Coast cliche. We all know the situation: Great creative company starts up in BC, but there’s not enough business to sustain it. So it ends...

Tourism Vancouver and creative agency smashLAB’s win of an international award for digital marketing shows the depth of this city’s creative talent. Local travel advocate Tourism has scored many a coup with its way-out-there marketing (bringing the Olympics to Vancouver --now that was a Big Idea?). Now, it’s scored another coup...