The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are moving house and are determined to go out with a bang.
A poignant farewell in the form of a multimedia campaign gives tribute to the Canad Inns Stadium – home to the Manitoba city football team for the last 58 years. The Blue Bombers are in the process of moving to the University of Manitoba, where they will play starting in the 2012 season.
Ads with the tagline, “Our History. Our House.” include posters and billboards running across Winnipeg and Manitoba, featuring images of players and fans paying homage to the Canad Inns Stadium. Headlines for the creative include, “We built this house from the ground up. Now we want the fans to bring it down” and, “Football has given this place a reason. The fans give it soul.”
Created by Winnipeg-based McKim Cringan George, the campaign idea is to capture the nostalgic stadium and the generations of families and friends that have made it their home away from home, Jesse Cringan, account director, MCG tells MiC.
The stadium move is a result of the need for a more modern facility, providing opportunities for more luxury suites, enhanced concessions, corporate sponsorships and concerts, he says.
Phase one of the campaign, which began May 16 and is set to run until June 23, will target a broad market of consumers purchasing season tickets. Promotional platforms include radio, digital signage, superboards, billboards, wild posters, restaurant washroom posters, online ads on the Blue Bombers website and print ads in the Winnipeg Free Press and Winnipeg Sun.
The second phase of the campaign, running throughout the season, will target 18- to 49-year-old males purchasing game day tickets with online and social media.
After a number of years of research for the Winnipeg Football Club, MCG believes that a tipping point exists where individual ticket buyers will eventually move to purchase a full season ticket package. Therefore the promotional efforts are working to get consumers to that point, explains Cringan.
“Given the WFC is transitioning into the new stadium next year, and as a result of this there is a palpable excitement in the air,” he adds. “The club felt that this year represented a great opportunity, for the first time, to give equal weight to both game day and season ticket promotions.”
