Jazz Media offering ground-floor basketball sponsorship opps
Toronto’s Jazz Media – best known for bringing its giant portable LED screens to major events – added sports marketing to its portfolio when the opportunity arose to exclusively handle corporate sponsorship and marketing initiatives for three new basketball teams that are set to join the 60-team American Basketball Association next year.
The company’s new Jazz Media Display Group will build corporate partnerships for the Mississauga Red Wolves as well as an as-yet-unnamed Halifax team and a team that will be based in Connecticut. Montreal already has an ABA team and Quebec City, Calgary and Edmonton are expected to join the league in 2007.
‘We will be contacting companies that may be seeking an opportunity to increase brand loyalty or develop a footprint in professional basketball within their communities,’ says Jazz Media president Paul Riley. He adds that ‘the ABA – many of whose teams are owned by celebrities and former athletes – is the fastest growing sports league in history, with the number of teams doubling over the past three years.’
Throughout North America, Riley says millions of people watch the games, and the target demo for the broadcasts is males and females 14-45. Games played by the three teams Jazz is representing will be televised by local broadcasters including Rogers-Peel in the Mississauga region, with projected viewers per game of 4,000 to 5,000. In Halifax, viewership is expected to about 10,000, but it’s too early to call for the Connecticut team.
OBN expands video board network to Winnipeg
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
Online parent resource relaunches
Marketers and advertisers looking to engage parents who go online now have one more option in KiddingAroundToronto.com. Started as a hobby a year ago, the site has relaunched – making its approximately 600,000 monthly hits (about 12,000 unique monthly visitors in the Toronto/GTA) available to sponsors.
The one-stop shop offers banner-ad spots throughout its extensive directory of local products, services and events for babies, kids and parents. Other draws are an e-mag and newsletter, coupon options, contests and a parents’ chat zone. So far, says KAT director of operations Leslie Schneeweiss, top advertisers include Beaches Family Resorts and the Hummingbird Centre, but the doors are open for anyone looking to reach moms and pops.
Top Drawer wins Golf Town account
Golf Town has awarded Toronto agency Top Drawer Creative its national media planning and buying agency for 2007.
CBC’s ardent wooing wins Mazda as Intelligence sponsor
Sponsorship and stylish rides for both good guys and bad guys will get Mazda on-screen in more ways than one with the premiere of CBC’s new Intelligence series. The 13-parter kicks off on Sept. 26 (8 p.m. ET) with a re-broadcast of the Gemini-nominated pilot. Episode one of the new season shows will be broadcast October 10 (9 p.m. ET).
CBC customer marketing manager Steven Pitkanen tells Media in Canada that Mazda vehicles were fit into the needs of the program without a specific number of placements. ‘We have to be very careful not to force-fit product placement. Mazda was great enough to give us, I think, five vehicles. They’ll be used by the heroes and the bad guys.’
Doctor Who morphs into hottie for season two premiere
With David Tennant (who played Barty Crouch Jr. in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) as the tenth incarnation of the Time Lord, season two of Doctor Who premieres on CBC on October 9 at 9 p.m. Episode AMA last season was 758,000 for the 2+ demo.
Bravo once again showcases Canadian films
Bravo is once again dedicating Sunday night programming throughout the fall to celebrating what it deems important cultural milestones in Canadian film. Starting on October 8 (8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT), the broadcaster will air ‘On Screen!,’ a six-part documentary that uses clips, interviews with cast and crew members and commentary from critics to chart the journey from set to screen for each production.
Included are: Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (October 8); Nobody Waved Goodbye (October 15); I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing (October 22); My American Cousin (October 29); Mon Oncle Antoine (November 5); and Roadkill (November 12).
Feldman puts Cook in charge of corporate partnerships
Nathalie Cook has been hired by Toronto’s S.L. Feldman & Associates as VP of corporate partnerships. She will focus on developing corporate partnerships and properties for the entertainment marketing agency, which reps such clients as Diana Krall, Elvis Costello, Norah Jones and The Chieftains. Formerly with the Special Olympics, Cook also spent twelve years at IMG.
PMB Factoid
Participate in Billiards – Profile by Age
Naming rights on offer as Ryerson’s biz faculty moves to Bay Street
Moving Canada’s largest business faculty to the downtown Toronto street that symbolizes Canadian commerce is not only a coup, but a one-of-a-kind gambit, at least in this country, says Ryerson biz dean Ken Jones. A joint venture of Ryerson University and Cadillac Fairview, the just-opened Ryerson Business Building stands at the southeast corner of Bay and Dundas streets. It houses nearly 28,000 students and includes the university’s new MBA programs as well as four bachelor of commerce programs and eight management research centres and institutes.
Jones says interest in naming rights is intense. Still up for grabs at press time were the building itself, a 500-seat auditorium, a huge atrium, 32 classrooms and several conference suites. What’s the value proposition of slapping a corporate moniker on any of them? Jones tells Media in Canada that companies could leverage not only the faculty’s sizzling hot new location, but also ‘build on our impact on Canadian business. With more than 1,000 graduates a year, we put more students into the business marketplace than any other school in Canada. We have very strong core programs and we’re linked to industries including retail, hospitality and tourism and information systems.’
Rising young media star
This is the tenth 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.
Sarah Armstrong, media planner/buyer
Genesis Media, Toronto
Background: At Genesis for a year, after taking the advertising course at Toronto’s Sheridan College. Formerly managed a small family business in Oakville, Ont.
Claim to fame: Bringing creativity and value to big and small clients alike. To help Indigo Books target the teen market for the first time, Armstrong aligned the brand with Habbohotel. This entailed an Indigo-branded section of the virtual online hotspot and an Indigo contest. Another recent example is a radio campaign to help StarChoice recruit staff for offices in Canada. It targeted by time and mind-set with radio tags scheduled when people were on their way home from work. She worked with the client and station to write the script, positioning StarChoice as a place where people actually enjoy their work day. It was so successful that StarChoice had to ask the agency to stop running the ads.
Talk to MiC
Hey, Media in Canada readers, share your ideas with us. ‘The New Plan’ showcases your savviest media campaigns, ones that exemplify the way forward in the new mediaverse. ‘What’s on your mind?’ is for quick and pithy raves – like M2 Universal president Hugh Dow’s recent thumbs up about the Toronto Star‘s new downloadable edition, or Zenith Optimedia prexy/CEO Sunni Boot’s rant about the probable fate of serials. Got it? OK, ball’s in your court. Email our staff writer, Terry Poulton (tpoulton@brunico.com) or phone her (416.408.2300 x252).
NADbank: newspaper readership stable and showing increases in latest selected markets
Average issue readership in the Toronto and Montreal markets has not changed from the NADbank 2005 Study full-year results, but both Vancouver and Ottawa-Gatineau experienced increases. These findings are part of the NADbank (Newspaper Audience Databank) 2005/06 Readership Study for Selected Markets, which includes data from fall 2005, plus spring 2006 field work in the four most competitive markets in Canada.
The numbers also indicate that newspapers are still a force to be reckoned with. More than three-quarters of adults 18+ read a daily in the past week: 79% in Vancouver, 76% in Toronto, 79% in Ottawa, and 77% in Montreal. Those reporting that they read any paper yesterday jumped to 56% from 50% in Vancouver and grew slightly in Ottawa-Gatineau, with a tally of 53% from 52%.
SavvyMom Today expands into Vancouver market
After a year of ‘dishing advice to time-crunched mothers’ in Toronto, SavvyMom Today expanded into the Vancouver ‘mom market’ last week, says co-founder (with Minnow Hamilton) Sarah Morgenstern. Although the permission-based online newsletter launched without paid advertisers, she says that situation changed with the realization that SavvyMom Today is so ‘mom-fluential’ that over 62 percent of readers report purchasing an items they saw or learned about through the twice-weekly newsletter.
With 6,000 subscribers in the Toronto area and 1,000 already signed up in Vancouver, Morgenstern adds that high reader engagement has been achieved because ‘we’ve built the savvymom.ca brand and credibility on tried and tested solutions. Everything we endorse has been test-driven by our team members and ‘Savvy Scouts,’ who are busy mothers with a discerning eye for gimmick vs. the practical.’ The newsletter will launch in Ottawa on October 12, in Calgary at the beginning of December and in other Canadian cities in the near future.
