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Making the world their hotspot

Learn how fast-growing creative agency, Taylor Reid, juggles video shoots, client meetings and team coordination while travelling the globe thanks to Rogers Business wireless solutions.

four cinematographers holding film equipment

“We go through an insane amount of data,” says Nicholas Taylor, Co-Founder and Director at Taylor Reid Creative Agency: a young yet skyrocketing creative agency based out of Toronto near Trinity Bellwoods Park. “We're sending decks and videos, uploading, downloading—we might go through five or ten gigs in a day.”

Despite the location of their head office, Nicholas and his business partner, Co-Founder and Director of Photography, Paul Reid, often find themselves anywhere but. “I think we're on the road more than half of the year,” says Paul. And it’s nothing new. For Nicholas, whose stint in Burma as a political science student and whose love of film at a young age thrust him into the world of feature-length documentaries, and Paul, whose passion for skateboarding kicked off an early career in shooting action sports around the globe, international travel has been par for the course for a long time since. “Before COVID,” says Paul, “we were home for only about three months a year.”

“There’s just so many moving parts that we're always tethered to our laptops and phones.”

But having just shot an ad campaign for a major car company, it’s safe to say the pandemic hasn’t slowed the agency’s growth—or their need for seamless, reliable wireless connectivity at an affordable cost. “Nicholas would be on a conference call with the creative team while our crew is driving through the mountains of Whistler, and then I’d be on a video call showing locations, taking photos, shooting videos and sending them out to everyone,” says Paul. “There’s just so many moving parts that we're always tethered to our laptops and phones.”

For both Nicholas and Paul, choosing Rogers Business as their provider was almost a given because of the long history they and their families have as Rogers customers. “I’ve been with Rogers pretty much since I was born,” says Paul, “with landline services to the cell phone services. I even remember my parents’ old car phone,” he says. “So, my experience with Rogers just carried through to my business.”

Nicholas Reid (left) and Paul Reid (right)

Nicholas Taylor, Co-Founder and Director and Paul Reid, Co-Founder and Director of Photography  at Taylor Reid Creative Agency

“I'm in the same boat,” says Nicholas. “I've just been with Rogers for life, and I’ve been happy with it. Always had a great experience.”

And this latest ad campaign was hardly the first time Nicholas and Paul needed the utmost performance without breaking the bank while abroad—and that’s where Roam Like Home, which allows for talking, texting and using data in more than 180 destinations worldwide for a low daily fee, has been crucial.    “There were times,” says Nicholas, “where we’d have to go into a convenience store in, for example, Zambia or Columbia where the WiFi isn’t reliable, and buy a SIM card for 12-hour shoots.” But that all changed with Roam Like Home, which gives them the ability to turn on their phone and use it as if they’d never left. “Now we can hotspot a phone to keep our business running seamlessly while on the road, checking in with other clients, communicating with people back home, and sharing large files.”

“We don’t even use hotel internet because why bother messing around with log-ins and other inconveniences?”

“Generally, we can land, turn on our phones, and we’re done,” adds Paul. “We don’t even use hotel internet because why bother messing around with log-ins and other inconveniences?” Paul recalls a time on a production in Turks and Caicos where they tried using the hotel WiFi to have an initial meeting with a large client. “The hotel WiFi just wasn’t keeping up, and you can’t use that as an excuse,” he says. “So, we just hotspotted one of our phones, and it was perfectly smooth. Obviously, we ended up getting the job, and it was one of the most exciting projects we’ve ever done.”

Their business has done so well despite the pandemic that Nicholas and Paul have hired two more full-time staff. As a result, they’re considering more Rogers Business services. One they’ve already been set up with and intend to use more of moving forward is Rogers Unison: a cloud-based voice solution that, among other things, allows calls to be answered from anywhere on any mobile device and can greet and direct customers using an automated answering system, routing calls between team members until someone picks up.

“It’s nice that we’re lucky enough to grow over COVID,” says Nicholas, “and we’ve been looking to expand our Rogers services to fit the larger team.”

Click here to learn more about wireless plans and devices from Rogers Business.