The Sponsorship Marketing Council Canada handed out its annual awards last night in Toronto, highlighting the best work in the space from the past year.

Ford’s sponsorship at TIFF took the Best in Show and Events and Festivals awards. The car co’s “Ride for the Stars” program showed celebrities getting in and out of the 2016 Ford Explorer on the TIFF red carpet. The campaign included branded reporter videos from the red carpet, a #WhoIsInTheFord Twitter contest, daily recap videos on social media and a 360-degree virtual reality Mustang movie experience. The campaign generated seven million social media impressions, over one million views on the daily recap videos and over two thousand engagements with the #WhoIsInTheFord contest.

Sport Chek won the Sports award for its “#MyNorth” campaign. The multi-platform campaign and associated clothing line focused on the neighbourhoods where basketball players in the GTA grow up playing the game. In the end, the campaign generated 15 million shares on social media and the apparel line sold in less than two months.

The Best New Innovation award went to Sun Life for its “Parcours Simplement Brillant Home Economics Program” at Expo-Québec.

The Media award went to the broadcast partnership between the CIBC and the Toronto 2015 PAN/Parapan Am Games.

Best Cause sponsorship of the year went to the integration of Sick Kids into Murdoch Mysteries. The partnership had the hospital integrated into the show’s first-ever holiday episode, with a surrounding set of digital and broadcast promotions to drive donations during the holiday season.

Image: SMCC award emcee, sports broadcaster Andi Petrillo