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Coastal Contacts Inc. Unveils New Brand Direction

Coastal Contacts Inc., the world’s largest online eyewear retailer has announced a rebrand of ClearlyContacts.ca to Clearly. The rebrand marks one year since Essilor acquired the Canadian founded eyewear brand.

“We are now the largest online eyewear retailer in the world and in a lot of ways, we simply outgrew our name.” said Roy Hessel, CEO of Clearly. “The name Clearly aligns with our overall mission to help people see clearly.”

In an interview with VuePoint, Hessel said the new brand direction is more than a name change, “When we acquired Clearly a year ago, we gained an amazing platform and an outstanding team. We knew we had a business that had the potential to go beyond selling just contacts and frames at an affordable price to one that could join the fight against poor vision worldwide. This year, we have expanded our focus to include educating our customers about vision health and have made greater investments in the eye care industry. We made some significant changes to our platform and the way we interact with our customers. We believe the safety and best correction of our customers is paramount, and we provide products that meet these criteria.”

Hessel told Vuepoint that Clearly is looking to build relationships and collaborate with eye care professionals in Canada, “By working together to address unmet needs in vision care access and education, we can affect positive change while growing the market for the benefit of all stakeholders. We have stepped up and shifted the purpose of our company from selling product at a discount to championing proper eye health. This begins with a comprehensive eye exam through eye care professionals.”

“We recommend consistent comprehensive eye exams and believe a proper Rx starts with an exam by an ECP,” says Hessel. “As leaders in vision correction, we share a common goal with eye care professionals to ensure access to better eye health education. The need is great and there is a role for each of us to play.”

With the rollout of the rebrand, customers will notice a wider selection of lenses to choose from, including KODAK BlueReflect Lens. With the expansion of lens offerings, Clearly will also integrate lens education throughout its order process allowing customers the chance to choose which lenses they’d like to purchase for their particular needs. Additionally, Clearly has launched a style service where by appointment, vision ambassadors will make frame and lens recommendations based on a customer’s prescription, photo, style preference, and sizing.

For more information visit: www.Clearly.ca

U of M Student Among Essilor 2015 Student Grant Award Winners

Essilor announced the names of 16 student grant award winners from North American Optometric schools based on entries to a case study competition.  Each of the winners receives a $1,000 grant.  Among the winners is University of Montreal student, Zoé Lacroix.  The National honour went to New England College of Optometry student, Luke Cyr.

Entries were judged on dispensing skills, application of Varilux lenses to patient needs, analysis of the case(s) and analysis of the lens design and performance.

 

Canadians Believe UV is Most Dangerous Form of Light, But Still Do Not Practice Year-Round Sun Protection

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Most Canadians (87 percent) think sunlight is dangerous for their eyes, but, despite this, more than half of Canadians falsely believe that you only need to protect your eyes from the sun’s UV rays in the warmer, summer months. Results from the 2015 “Light and Glare” survey from Transitions Optical, Inc.[i] show that 87 percent of Canadians agree that they should protect their eyes from the sun in July, but only 47 percent say the same for the month of December.

“Unfortunately, the survey results reveal a large group of Canadians who are still in the dark when it comes to understanding the importance of UV protection for the eyes year-round,” said Isabelle Tremblay-Dawson, senior marketing manager, Canada. “We hope this data will urge more people in the industry to talk more frequently about the ways in which UV rays are present during the entire calendar year.”

In addition to thinking that sunlight is dangerous to the eyes, Canadians also believe that blue light from digital devices (50 percent) and overhead lighting indoors (34 percent) can be harmful to the eyes as well.

“It is interesting that there is so much higher recognition of the danger of UV rays, versus blue light, because Canadians actually report that they increased their time spent using digital devices (70 percent) rather than their time outdoors (18 percent) over the past five years,” said Tremblay-Dawson. “The research suggests that even though Canadians are not necessarily spending more time outdoors, they still recognize that UV can be dangerous to the eyes – it’s just not top-of-mind year-round.”

Transitions Optical will be bringing attention to each month’s UV awareness statistic with a creative infographic on its Facebook page (Transitions lenses: Healthy Sight Professionals (Canada)) throughout 2015. Eyecare professionals are encouraged to share each month’s infographic on social media with their patients to help promote year-round sun protection for the eyes.

Transitions_survey_months Transitions_survey_light

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] Online survey conducted by Wakefield Research on behalf of Transitions Optical, Inc., among 1,000 Canadian adults, ages 18-69. The survey included oversamples to statistically significant subgroups of Asian Canadians, African Canadians and Aboriginal Canadians and was fielded between February 20th and March 6th, 2015.

Three New Mexx Models for Women

Three new Mexx Eyes styles for women pick up the characteristic XX as a cool decorative temple motif. Both Xs are looped around the temples with coloured retaining cord – handmade by Mexx Eyes. They form an exciting transition between different acetates and surfaces used on the temples. These new women’s styles also come in a striking wood look (models 5335 and 5152) or in triple-colour layered material (style 5334). www.rlanctot.com

NIKE VISION LAUNCHES SKYLON ACE XV JUNIOR

Nike Vision, the premium eyewear brand combining the science of vision with expertise in sport, announces its inaugural pair of young athletes’ performance eyewear. For more than a decade, Nike Vision’s sport eyewear has been the choice of top athletes.

The brand’s first youth performance style will be the Skylon Ace XV Jr., available this month at optical retailers and a wide range of retailers, including Nike’s online store (www.nike.com)

To perfect the fit of the Skylon Ace XV Jr., designers worked with facial morphology to ensure the style truly fit young athletes.

Marchon.com

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