CTV has just relaunched its site with new partnerships, more online entertainment, new interactive features and search functions to enhance user engagement. It also comes with increased homepage exposure for brands and program integration options throughout the site for advertisers.
Already on board, and helmed by BBDO Automotive and PHD Canada respectively, Dodge and Dove will integrate with Grey’s Anatomy streaming over the next few weeks with co-branded backdrops and schedules, building on moves taken earlier this year.
‘This site reflects how audiences want to view content,’ Stephan Argent, CTV VP digital media, tells MiC. ‘They want more choice; they want faster access to video on news, programming and entertainment,’ he says. ‘We also wanted to create a more flexible environment that will allow us to switch certain areas of the site in the event of major breaking news to provide audiences with an instant window into what’s going on.’
Launching from the home page and throughout the redesigned site is a new Nintendo Wii Get Up And Play Challenge helmed by Starcom, which leads to a separately housed, user-generated content portal built by the CTV digital team where families can build profiles and submit videos, photos, share family Wii experiences, tips and game strategies for a chance to win a vacation to Whistler, BC. The goal of the game is to earn points and get a high standing on the scoreboard. ‘This provides the client a lot of consumer engagement with the Wii brand, and allows gaming families to share the fitness and bonding benefits of the Wii game system across a community,’ explains Argent.
A nine-week campaign, launching this week, that includes a series of customized 30-second contest promo spots airing across all CTV TV channels is part of Starcom’s media efforts to drive viewers to the contest site. Developed by CTV Brand Partnerships, the spots are designed as extended customized billboards with emulated scenes from CTV shows, with Wii product demos emulating the tone and manner of respective CTV programs. Before calling viewers to action, each spot highlights a different game title, and and let’s viewers know they’re watching CTV, sponsored by Wii, while they’re learning new games.
Additionally, a series of 10-second spots, also developed by CTV Brand Partnerships, will air in targeted programming on A.
Canada AM and eTalk are also integrating Wii into their programming through on-air celebrity ‘Wii skills’ challenges in addition to weekly contest mentions driving viewers to the contest microsite.
Online, campaign support will appear on CTV.ca/entertainment, TSN.ca; spacecast.com, DiscoveryChannel.ca and CP24.com.
Argent tells MiC the Wii initiative is CTV’s ‘most ambitious and intensive digital sales project to date,’ and adds that the move has ‘raised the levels of engagement and value to both [CTV’s] users and [its] clients.’
New customization features on the site include Most Viewed Video and a MyNews user-generated portal. In response to viewer engagement with online video, a rotator box at the top of CTV.ca also serves as window for easy access to breaking stories and events.
The site already features the full ep-streaming CTV Video Player launched in March, as well as user-generated news galleries and video, reporter blogs, prime-time skeds and recaps, movie trailers online and entertainment news since last September. It received almost half a billion video views according to Akamai data, and sees more than 3.2 million unique visitors according to ComScore Media Metrix (Aug. 08-July 09 data).
