A deliberately provocative ‘My Vice is Slice’ campaign began rolling out across Canada yesterday. Alliance Atlantis’ internal media team is handling the media buys, touching all points in the marketers’ toolbox with online, on-air and OOH components hitting Halifax, Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, London, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.
Women 18-49 are the target for radio and TV spots, interactive online features, movie trailers, transit ads (subways, buses, streetcars and skytrains) and print executions reaching into fitness clubs, women’s washrooms and grocery stores. A heavy PR component, run by Montreal HQ’d National Public Relations, will leverage the appeal of program hosts and Canadian talents including Kelly Osbourne, Ellie Tesher and Rykr.
On air, Alliance Atlantis is promoting the launch with heavy use of US ad avails, nestings on 10 other specialty nets, and a free preview on Bell Expressvu. Conceived and created by Vancouver-based Rethink, the spots suggest that women everywhere are about to neglect their current vices in favour of watching the newly-branded net. The ad campaign, purportedly paid for by ‘a coalition of neglected vices,’ hits TV as various vices try to win back women’s hearts -‘Chocolaty Badness,’ ‘Coffee Talk,’ ‘Bubble Bath Attack,’ ‘Malls,’ ‘Girly Drinks’ and ‘Shoes.’ The radio spots include pleas to ‘Come back to gossip,’ ‘Come back to trashy novels,’ and ‘Come back to the Internet.’
The print and OOH executions take a confessional tone, showing grainy mug shots of women with sassy quotes in sub-title style. ‘I watch Slice because my real-life friends are so boring,’ says one. Another says: ‘I watch Slice, but don’t tell anyone. This isn’t going in an ad is it?’
The creative will dominate subways and urban dailies, including the Toronto Star, 24 Hours in Edmonton and Calgary, and Metro in Toronto and Calgary. In Toronto, a print wrap in Metro will carry on the confessional theme with several quotes playfully and unapologetically making fun of the print publication itself. ‘After reading this, I need an antidote to all the quality and substance,’ reads one. Others include: ‘This paper would be better if it was a TV show;’ ‘I only pick this up for the TV listings;’ and ‘Hey, look everybody, I’m reading a newspaper.’
The OOH rollout includes a collaboration between Alliance Atlantis and Pattison Outdoor that marks the first use by a Canadian advertiser of lenticular technology (motion-changing creative in high-traffic malls).
The online ad campaign, developed by BBDO Toronto’s Proximity Interactive team, gives Canadian women surfing female-skewed sites the chance to get a glimpse into other women’s secret vices. An interactive luxury loft feature lets web browsers click on various windows to access guilty secrets by viewing snippets of Slice shows.
The Slice network’s launch will carry the campaign’s tone into regular programming features with cheeky viewer advisories such as: ‘This program has some coarse language. You know how kids are these days. Viewer discretion is advised,’ and ‘This program has mature subject matter and coarse language. Two out of three ain’t bad. Viewer discretion is advised.’
The new net’s microsite, www.Slice.ca, will act as a sort of digital gossip circle with several social media features. Users will be able to submit comments on articles throughout the site. They can also send their own stories to the ‘confessionals’ section, give advice on how they would handle various situations in the ‘Your Call’ column, and refer questions to the ‘Ask a Guy’ feature.
Other online sections will include: Dish, a blog for rants and gossip; Strut Your Stuff, which features juicy viewer confessionals and sexy playlists; Advice, with a how-to and party-planning focus; and Play with Slice, a collection of games, quizzes, horoscopes and contests. Currently, www.Slice.ca encourages visitors to sign up for a newsletter, the first issue of which is scheduled for March 13.
