Street marketing has added a new old-school version of mobile to the guerilla arsenal.

Finally there’s an authoritative and reliable means for measuring the effectiveness of media relations campaigns.

Global biggie Ogilvy Renault breaks law protocol in sporty new media play.

Calgary-HQ’d Vauntcom Media Corp. is planning to add the Air Canada Centre in Toronto to its roster of Canadian venues – where advertisers garner impressions by the millions on LCD and plasma screens. Among those marketers, says Glenn McConnell, SVP national advertising and business development, are Toyota and Maple Pictures (the Canadian spin-off of Lion’s Gate Films).

This week, Vauntcom held an official launch party at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, where 140 screens have been active since April. The company sells sound and motion ads in main concourses and washrooms at Calgary’s Pengrowth Saddledome, with 249 LCD displays, at Ottawa’s Scotiabank Place (170 displays), Edmonton’s Rexall Place (95 displays), and Vancouver’s GM Place (65 displays). ‘This is the first time anybody has really tied all these centres together,’ says McConnell.

www.vauntcom.com

Thanks to cutting-edge ‘Window F/X’ technology imported from Europe, Boombox Marketing’s Optiadmedia division has begun transforming storefront windows in downtown Toronto into screen ads for whatever is being sold. Almost like holograms or floating screens, the ads are invisible from inside, but attention grabbers for passersby 24/7, even in bright sunlight.

‘Home builders, for instance, can run virtual tours of the residences they’re selling on the windows of their sales centres even when they’re closed,’ explains Optiadmedia’s Michael Dellios – who adds that touchscreen capabilities allow potential customers to literally window shop whether a store is open or is closed.

The Outdoor Broadcast Network has added Winnipeg to its burgeoning network of LED video boards, which already includes Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Hamilton, Cambridge and Niagara Falls, and claims weekly impressions of 6.3 million. Company president Peter Irwin says his latest giant, two-sided board – strategically positioned near the famous Portage & Main intersection – furthers his goal of ‘making it easier for clients to purchase video boards on a national basis.’

He adds that utilizing affiliate sales agreements with other companies, as OBN did with High Point Media for the Winnipeg installation, ‘increases OBN’s ability to provide one-stop shopping for national clients who want multi-city video board coverage.’

www.obn.ca

Best Buy has pulled out all the stops for the September 15th opening of its downtown Toronto flagship store. We’re talking a weekend of free musical performances in Dundas Square by Grammy winners Beyoncé and John Mayer, plus autograph sessions and chances to win VIP passes to the mini-concerts.

Then there’s a ‘Family Fun Day’ offering kids an all-day shot at meeting their favourite themed-characters from The Simpsons, Sid the Sloth, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Taz, Curious George, Dora the Explorer and Spongebob Squarepants. South Park fans will get to have their faces superimposed onto a scene from the show and take away the results in photo form.

www.bestbuy.ca/bayanddundas

CIRA (Canadian Internet Registration Authority) has turned Canada’s role in OneWebDay (onewebday.ca) – a global celebration of the Internet – into a cross-country grassroots promotional event lasting nearly two months. September 22 has been designated as OneWebDay around the world, a day to build awareness of the Internet and its positive impact on individuals, businesses and communities.

Because Canada is one of the world’s most connected countries, it’s fitting that the celebration is being extended beyond just one day. The OneWebDay Tour began earlier this month with Tour Ambassador, video/film writer and producer Gavin Michael Booth, heading to 12 communities across the country to shoot video of his conversations with Canadians about the value of the Internet to everyday life, their online experiences, and the answer to the question ‘What are you doing online?’ Results of the poll and video of the tour will be posted online (onewebday.ca, journeeweb.ca) as part of the celebration. Creation of the tour and websites are the work of Toronto’s Fuse Marketing Group.

This is the eighth installment of our ‘Rising Young Media Stars’ series, in which we profile the next gen media minds. Curious as to who these new thinkers were, and what they were thinking, strategy and Media in Canada canvassed the industry, asking media shops to single out their top innovative and strategic recruits. And we’re scouting for more of the same – so tell us about the hot talent in your shop.

Zoryana Loboyko
Account director, PHD Canada

Claim to fame: The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty voting billboard, on which she worked with the PHD team from the beginning, she says, ‘to bring Dove’s new philosophy and positioning as well as the creative to life.’ The result included two live LED screens in Toronto with a toll-free voting number and the tally updated in real time. Also, 10-by-20-foot posters were placed in major markets to drive consumers to campaignforrealbeauty.ca. The campaign won awards and a lot of attention from the news media, and was picked up in the U.S. and executed via a billboard in Times Square.

What better way to launch your newest magnetic construction toy than to piggyback onto the 30th anniversary celebration for Toronto’s CN Tower – by staging a contest whose winner builds the tallest replica of same? Toronto-HQ’d MEGA Brands (formerly Mega Bloks) will do exactly that today and showcase its imagination-sparking Magnetix system during a weekend of special events. Plus, merely uttering the word ‘Magnetix’ will win a special admission price of three visitors for $30 to the tower’s lookout and glass floor levels. Deserving of a bow for MEGA Brands’ recent promotions is sizzling hot, Amsterdam-based Strawberryfrog.

Exclaim! magazine is gearing up for its Aggressive Tendencies Tour, an annual cross-country concert tour to showcase the newest heavy music artists, and MuchLOUD has signed on as the exclusive presenting sponsor for the third year. The 2006 tour, which begins October 1 in Vancouver and ends on October 14 in Montreal, includes performances by Pelican, Daughters, and KEN Mode with guess openers in each city. MuchLOUD’s sponsorship includes a DPS feature in the mag that affiliates MuchLOUD with a relevant aggressive music discussion on touring bands. Christian Hamilton, national account exec for Exclaim!, says the relationship with MuchLOUD is a synergistic one that includes frequent on-air mentions of the tour on both MuchLOUD and Much Music.

‘Exclaim! lends an emerging music and street cred (to MuchLOUD) that can be difficult to reach for mediums that are not physically on the street and in the clubs, as Exclaim! is,’ he says. ‘Traditionally a crowd that’s wary of corporate branding, last year the tour sparked so much fervor it bridged this gap – the singer of the headlining band wrapped himself in the MuchLOUD banner for his on-stage set.’

The tour’s secondary sponsor is the D-TOX apparel brand. Exclaim! will be distributing 30,000 postcards promoting the tour with D-TOX information on one side and pertinent concert details on the other. In addition, Black Eyes and Broken Bones, a CD compilation of Canadian aggressive hardcore bands, will be distributed alongside D-TOX apparel at the merchandise table of each show, and each touring band member will receive D-TOX branded Exclaim! Aggressive Tendencies apparel.

Blockbuster Canada will likely ‘do well by doing good’ with its support of the ABC Canada Literacy Foundation’s ‘My Bee In A B-o-x’ national spelling bee. All 445 Blockbuster stores across Canada will offer a Spelling Games and Activities Toolkit to customers who rent or pre-purchase Akeelah and the Bee along with a complimentary guide to planning family bee nights. Blockbuster stores will also host three-hour, in-store spelling games and activities, with prizing for children and their families, on September 9, the day after International Literacy Day. Sharp Electronics and Maple Pictures are also contributing promotional elements and merchandise to the initiative.