Terry O'Reilly
speaker
4,557 appearances
20 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 3d ago
Terry O'Reilly’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 20 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.
Appearances
For decades and until the company was bought out, its radio campaign ads always ended with the slogan, our product is steel, our strength is people.
What was the origin of that slogan and what was the ad agency that put it forward?
Well, for those of you who didn't live or grow up in Ontario, DeFasco is a big steel manufacturer based in Hamilton.
It was founded in 1912 as the Dominion Foundries and Steel Company.
Soon, the company gained the acronym nickname DoFasco, and the name stuck.
DoFasco ran a corporate advertising campaign for years, and the slogan became famous.
It was developed by a Hamilton-based advertising agency called R.T.
Kelly.
My friend Mike Jaycock was there at the birth of the slogan.
Mike tells me his advertising agency was tasked with doing a research study in 1969 to find out what the awareness and attitudes were towards its client, DeFasco.
They surveyed employees, business leaders, government staff, and politicians.
From that research, the ad agency was to develop a corporate communication strategy to lift the awareness of DeFasco.
One day in the boardroom, a number of potential slogan ideas were presented.
None really hit the mark.
Then a quiet spoken ad writer named Dave Adney offered up another option.
Our product is steel.
Our strength is people.
There was dead silence in the room.
And then everybody jumped up and said, that's it.
ADNI had managed to squeeze down everything about the company and the people into one powerful idea.
Showing 2861–2880 of 4,557 · page 144 of 228
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