When a marketer is interested in leveraging events with primo glam quotient, Inside Entertainment has an inside track on celebs. In addition to exposure in the pages of the five-year-old magazine – whose readership has risen to 1,756,000 (as measured by PMB last month), with a well-heeled target demo of adults 18-49 (55% female skew) – the pub extends its reach to live soirees, most recently a luxe evening with Mika.
‘Inside E is known for hosting a lot of high-end parties and tying them in with things like the Toronto International Film Festival and the Oscars,’ Toronto-based publisher, Shelley Middlebrook, tells MiC. The events are held in current hot spots and draw between 400 and 800 guests, including whichever movie, music, media and even political celebrities happen to be in town. Canadian TV personalities like Jeanne Beker, Ben Mulroney and Carla Collins usually arrive with camera crews, and the events generally yield print coverage.
Sponsorships on offer for TIFF galas this fall are: branding identity of each event, category exclusivity, customized invitations with company logo, 50 tickets, signage integrated into event décor, sampling and/or product display, PR partnership to publicize event, post-event portfolio of digital printouts for use in marketing programs, prominent logo display in print ad thank-you to sponsors in the October issue of IE, inclusion in an insert in the National Post and copies of same at select Toronto hotels. Sponsors and their guests are also frequently invited to rub elbows with the glitterati at post-gala parties.
Middlebrook says sponsorships are also available for a more intimate festival dinner for 50-100 guests, who’ll have the opportunity to mingle with the cast and crew of one of the movies that premiere at TIFF. An equivalent event last year was held at the Drake Hotel in honour of the Dixie Chicks and the film about them, Shut Up and Sing.
