2021 Canadian Business Awards

Jan21147 Most Innovative Creative Learning Solutions Provider - Western Canada Burning Carrot is a modern company with a friendly and charismatic take on its industry. We caught up with President and Chief Creative Officer, Douglas Kipta, who told us a little more about how Burning Carrot has been blazing its own trail to success. Founded in 2007, Burning Carrot has been working to push to the forefront of the education, marketing, and advertising industry. Through its products which include graphics, web-based content, videos, photo production and e-learning solutions, it has been upgrading its own creative potential to design abstract educational solutions. This innovative abstract work seeks to develop something outside of the status quo from its client’s original plan. In doing this, it can come ‘at your ideas from left-field’, creating completely unique learning resources that its clients can use to deliver effective and fun messages to its end users. Since its beginning, Burning Carrot has garnered a wealth of hard-won experience in its field, and is confident that no matter the client it will be able to develop something they love. When it begins work with a new client, it starts cultivating that relationship with an ideation meeting. In this, it seeks to take its client’s thoughts and truly put them to work – ‘we thrive when our clients thrive’, explained Kipta. Burning Carrot’s meetings have been hailed as extremely particular to them in terms of its approach: it leads with a portfolio showing, empowered by the confidence that the employees of Burning Carrot have in their work. During this pitch, it aims to help the customer defeat any internal roadblocks and truly develop an idea into an actionable product, going from the first initial stages of ideation to truly breathing life into the idea. After this, the client should leave the pitch meeting having felt listened to and encouraged, excited to work with Burning Carrot in progressive brainstorming and ideation sessions. The name of the game for this enterprise is professionalism and enthusiasm. Although communication is a large part of Burning Carrot’s business model, it did not find that the pandemic negatively impacted its ability to keep this pillar of its business intact. Given that most of its clientele never met the team in person even prior to the outbreak, Burning Carrot had already been thriving in a remote environment. The transition to working fully remotely was far less troublesome for them than it may have been for some of its more traditional competitors. In fact, it found that due to Covid-19, there was if anything a much higher volume of work to be done. Due to how much the pandemic caused a dramatic shift in the worldwide cultural paradigm, many educational, advertising and marketing resources that companies had on standby for release were rendered obsolete. Tones that were used before, motifs and aspects of messages that once were the norm, were now in poor taste. At this time, these sectors turned to Burning Carrot for help. Today that pattern very much continues; even in a shrinking economy, the volume of work that Burning Carrot takes on has remained at a consistently high amount. Internally, Burning Carrot fosters a laid-back environment that allows its creatives to work at their own pace. Its employees champion being able to ‘feel the love’ when it comes to working with a new concept and idea, ensuring that every project they undertake is powered by drive and enthusiasm. Its staff are risk takers, curious minds, confident, willing to learn, and thrive when jumping at a new opportunity. With its successes keeping it exponentially moving forward, Burning Carrot is looking forward to a bright future. Based in Canada, a nation that is sometimes ‘considered a bit of an underdog’ by the international community, this business seeks to grow into a global enterprise. Despite the ‘underdog’ moniker, Canada is a widely respected global power with a multitude of trade and political connections that will allow its businesses the springboard they need to expand worldwide. In tandem with this, it is looking into kicking off an online ‘roadshow’. With this project it will attend annual conferences and conventions to speak about its business, its industry, and the ‘key hot topics’ that help it to encourage lifelong learning. As a closing statement, Kipta had this to say: ‘never think that an idea is too small or too big. Let’s work together to bring it to life. If you ever just want to banter, give us a shout!’ Company: Burning Carrot Design Inc Contact: Douglas Kipta Website: www.burningcarrotdesign.com