About Me

My name is Arjun Basu. For more than 20 years I have worked with multinationals, luxury brands, associations, and charities. I have seen how good content helps brands market their stories to build audience, to retain customers and to attract new ones.

I am an award-winning writer, editor and strategist. I have built out editorial/media brands and programs that encompass all platforms. I have created new brands and branding for start-ups, and created full-scope rebranding for companies and associations with a long and rich legacy. I have been around for pivots and changes and know the challenges that accompany these moments, from top to bottom.

I ask questions, sometimes difficult ones, to get to the heart of your story, and then leverage those learnings to create a coherent strategy that allows you to broadcast your story in a manner that fulfills your goals: whether that be targeting your current audience, building loyalty, seeking new customers, creating buy-in to changes internally, and/or achieving growth. Every ask is unique. And that means every ask requires a unique response.

I have been called “the bullshit detector” and in a good way. I can strengthen a bench, be a fly-on-the-wall, a fresh eye, an outside(r) voice.

I believe that all branding and strategy requires:

• Respect

• Creativity

• Empathy

• Quality

• Simplicity

• Results

And that any strong collaboration requires me to:

• Listen

• Learn

• Communicate

• Collaborate

• Create

I have served on boards (National Magazine Awards Foundation and currently with Access Copyright, Canada’s non-profit copyright collective representing creators and publishers), and have led corporate charitable initiatives. I have long been a mentor, an in-house consultant, a corporate advisor, and have created new departments and helped open new offices overseas within corporate structures. In the 2010s, I helped lead the rebranding and subsequent merging of two distinct corporate entities and cultures in the UK and Canada. I have spoken at conferences on three continents, extolling the necessity of coherent content strategy and inclusive, smart and strategic brand storytelling. I have served on juries for the National Magazine Awards Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. I host a podcast about the future of magazines.

I am here to serve you. I can take on quick projects, or long, complex ones. I can be hands on or hands off. Work in the foreground or deep in the back. I can work by the hour. By the week. By the month. Or on retainer. Anything is possible and depends on the scope of your project and its complexity, but mostly on your overall needs.

I am also aligned with a network of complementary talents and with various creative agencies as needed.

Some of the brands I have worked with (or currently work for) over the past 20+ years include: Air Canada, Mercedes Benz, Bombardier Business Aircraft, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Investors Group, The Canadian Tourism Commission (now Discover Canada), Tourism Toronto (now Destination Toronto), British Airways, Swiss Airlines, LAN (and later LATAM), Flexjet, VistaJet, Bell, Malaysian Airlines, American Institute of Chartered Public Accountants, APEX (the Airline Passenger Association), Logistik Unicorp, Spafax, Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, OBox Group, Most Wanted Co, Dentsu Isobar, Nectara, Gray Collection, Meltek, soNomad, The Good Kind, Adco Displetech…

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