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The Canadian Home Builders’ Association (CHBA) has announced the finalists for the 2010 CHBA National SAM Awards, which celebrate excellence in new homes and renovation design, innovative technology and construction techniques, outstanding presentation, and marketing activities across Canada. We’re excited that two of our clients had the honour and distinction of being nominated, and that we could help them achieve this level of excellence.

Empire Communities is up for the Green Home Award for their innovation in green home building, including the recent debut of their ECO² program, which BAM designed and launched. This program is ground-breaking in its focus on homeowner empowerment and education, including seminars and a video helping new homeowners learn about all the benefits and features of their ECO² homes. Every Empire home is now built to the specifications of the ECO² program, meaning homes are ENERGY STAR-qualified and include many other energy-saving features, such as Cent-a-Meters to track energy consumption in real time, solar ready rough-ins and more. The homes can also be upgraded with Empire’s ECOnomical and ECOlogical packages. You can read our Case Study of the campaign here.

Brookfield Homes is nominated for best website for www.thevillageniagara.com, a site for its community The Village in Niagara-on-the-Lake. BAM was responsible for the creative, concept and production of this website and we’re pleased to see it earning distinction. The website is designed to be useful, easy to navigate and interactive, and includes exciting features on the homepage to draw visitors in, like a photo slideshow, links to social media sites, upcoming calendar events, special inventory deals and other incentives, recent blog posts, a virtual tour of the neighbourhood and model homes, the opportunity to sign up for community updates, and more. You can read our Case Study of the website here.

Brookfield was also nominated for the Grand SAM Award, an award presented to the new home builder who best combines excellence in both the building and marketing of new homes. Brookfield credited BAM with the creative, concept and production of the work for the marketing campaign they’re nominated for, their new community in Caledon East, Pathways. BAM helped Pathways stand out as an exceptional new community that would appeal to families. We divided the community into six unique neighbourhoods, and designed a map showing several pathways winding their way through the community – a path for all passions, from biking and jogging to a dog walkers’ trail and stroller loop. We did gorgeous renderings of the two parks that the community will feature, as well as a stunning streetscape rendering. We also developed other benefits for the community to offer, like Brookfield’s “Green” Saver program. You can read our Case Study of the community’s marketing campaign here.

Awards will be announced in late February, 2011. Good luck to Empire Communities and Brookfield Homes!