Events
September 6
2006 Film Winners – Cannes International Advertising Festival
Toronto
www.canadacannes.ca
This year’s winning entries in the Cannes International Advertising Festival will be screened at 6 p.m. on September 6th at MaRS Auditorium (101 College Street). Judy John, SVP/managing partner, creative of Leo Burnett and Cannes film judge Steve Mykolyn, VP design & interactive CD of TAXI will speak at the event and a post-party for the advertising industry will follow.
September 7-8
2006
International Media in Transition Conference
Goethe Forum, Munich
www.mediaintransition.com
Focusing on structural transition in the media industry, the 2006 International Media in Transition Conference will cover such topics as Web 2.0, social web, user-generated content, interactive components (Ajax), e-commerce, media distribution and consumer behavior. Participating media companies, researchers and strategists from England, the U.S. and Europe include Last.fm, Yahoo!, Flickr, Amazon, Ask, Bloglines, Bubblegeneration and GEMA. Among the speakers are e-commerce pioneer John Buckman, founder of Magnatune Music, P2P file sharing innovator and inventor of Weedshare Steve Turnidge and Andy Bell, founder of Bloombox.tv.
AAPQ names Morissette president
The Association des agences du publicité du Québec (Association of Quebec Advertising Agencies) has appointed Sylvain Morissette president and CEO. He succeeds Yves St-Amand, who died in May. Formerly national director of corporate communications and public relations for Rona, Morissette was previously senior account director with Concordia Communication in Montreal (formerly BLSV) and held various positions with the Quebec Liquor Board.
Founded in 1988, the AAPQ has a membership of more than 40 agencies, which generate almost 80% of advertising revenues in Quebec.
McGinley named senior VP of station operations for CanWest MediaWorks
Chris McGinley has been named senior VP of station operations for CanWest MediaWorks. In the newly created position, she will oversee operations of all CanWest’s television and radio stations, including Global Television and CH. Formerly VP of CanWest’s western region’s television assets, McGinley was responsible for operations at nine Global and CH television stations across British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Prior to that, she was GM of Global Television’s Alberta stations and held various financial positions with WIC Television.
Yahoo.ca’s home page redesign gives advertisers exclusivity
So confident is Yahoo.ca that advertisers will embrace its newly redesigned home page that it more than doubled its ad sales force in anticipation of last week’s launch. The company’s investment will likely pay off if other advertisers are as enthusiastic about the extensive makeover as Best Buy Canada’s Vancouver-based online marketing manager Jeff Veldhuizen. ‘I like the new version of Yahoo’s home page at least 100% better than what was offered before, particularly because it gives the advertiser exclusivity on the page,’ he says. ‘This new approach will lend itself very well to us, especially when we want to do a branding campaign versus direct response. We definitely plan to use (this venue) more in the future than we’ve done in the past.’
MiC‘s K-I-S-S Pick: magazine scent strip for a hotel chain
What should a hotel smell like? That’s the offbeat question that sparked the creation for Westin Hotels & Resorts of a fragrance dubbed White Tea, plus a novel and far-reaching print campaign, all courtesy of its NYC-HQ’d creative agency, Deutsch Inc. First came the blending of the perfume – elegant with just a hint of snootiness – and then its migration to a raft of Canadian and American magazines in the form of a scent strip.
The strip first began appearing down south this spring in The New Yorker, Real Simple, Travel & Leisure, Golf, Condé Nast Traveler, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Forbes Life, Wired, New York Times Sunday Magazine, Self, Time Business, Departures and T:Travel. In Canada, it’s running until the end of the year in EnRoute, GolfStyle, Golf Canada, Ski Canada, Maclean’s, Time, Elle Canada, Canadian House & Home, Food & Drink, Toronto Life and Western Living.
Rising young media star
This is the third installment of our ‘Rising Young Media Stars’ series, in which we profile the next gen media minds. Media pundits have been adamant that to succeed in the new mediaverse, agencies require new ways of thinking. 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 – one of whom this continuing series will profile in each issue over the coming weeks. And we’re scouting for more of the same – so tell us about the dazzlers in your shop so we can shine a spotlight on them.
Lisa Correia
Account manager, ZenithOptimedia Toronto
Claim to fame: In addition to CIBC and W Network, Lisa works on specific divisions of Nestlé Canada including confectionery, breakfast anytime and instant nutrition. Recently she was part of the team tasked with making the Kit Kat brand synonymous with an uplifting break. The result was ‘The Kit Kat Break,’ a CanWest-produced animated 15-second unit featuring a branded clock built out of the bar itself. It bracketed top programming such as Superbowl and Survivor, running in concert with the brand-sell creative.
Tell us and we’ll tell the (media) world
Hey, Media in Canada readers. This is an open invitation to show off and sound off thanks to two new ongoing features. One, which we’re calling ‘The New Plan,’ will showcase the savviest media campaigns extant, ones that exemplify the way forward in the new mediaverse. With the other one, ‘What’s on your mind?’ we’re going for quick and pithy rants and raves. Got it? OK, ball’s in your court. Email our staff writer, Terry Poulton (tpoulton@brunico.com) or phone her (416.408.2300 x252).
HarperCollins launches online book sampling
HarperCollins has snagged bragging rights as the first publisher to actually pull off what’s been promised for many a moon – the online sampling of books. Thanks to last week’s launch of HC’s ‘Browse Inside’ program, readers can now do just that.
No plans are yet in the works to include ads with the free program. But the publisher has been experimenting with embedding ads on book sites. The first such initiative rolled out in February on behalf of Go It Alone! The Secret to Building a Successful Business on Your Own by Bruce Judson. With Google and Yahoo doing the indexing, the entire text of the business tome was put online with ads appearing on each of more than 200 web pages.
Plans are underway to roll out the program on a larger scale, extending the application to all books globally over the next year. As the program expands, consumers will be able to browse page views directly from author sites, HC’s newsletters and booksellers’ retail websites. In another first, HarperCollins has launched a Digital Media Café that will provide rich audio and video content, free and paid, for sampling, streaming and download to portable digital players.
A bank that’s definitely got game
Seems Montreal is as tennis-mad right now as Toronto, thanks to the ongoing Rogers Cup tournament, and even the National Bank isn’t immune. Yesterday, to promote its status as the presenting sponsor of the matches, the bank set out to attract a flash mob in downtown Montreal. Meanwhile, 40 nubile female ‘tennis ambassadors,’ clad in National Bank-branded gear, were to sprint around handing out 100 pairs of tickets for a match at Uniprix Stadium.
The bank’s senior manager of marketing, Johanne Denneny, explained that the initiative was prompted by ‘the human marketing approach (which) is a fast-growing trend in major European and Asian cities. It involves gathering a group of people to perform similar actions in order to create a powerful visual effect. By using this approach, the bank is reaffirming its reputation for avant-garde advertising strategies.’
National Bank committed to developing the growth of tennis in Quebec in 2005, when it signed a five-year partnership agreement with Tennis Canada to sponsor the Montreal edition of the Rogers Cup and to support numerous events throughout the province to help young hopefuls develop their careers. These include establishing the Excellence Fund, awarding $50,000 in annual bursaries.
Some surprises – Eloda ad analysis for July 28-August 3, 2006
P&G continued in top position, but Sony Pictures jumped from 10th spot to 2nd, while the Kartz Group and the governments of Ontario and Canada debuted on the top 15 list after long absences.
GM stands pat, Princess Margaret Hospital zooms: Media Monitors for July 31-August 6, 2006
GM stayed in top spot, while Princess Margaret Hospital zoomed from 82nd spot to 10th, and McDonald’s crept up from number 23 to number 7.
BBM Media Snapshot: Are you one of Canada’s devoted gardeners?
* 7.7 million Canadians (28%) consider themselves regular gardeners.
* 42% of regular gardeners are over the age of 54 (1.5 times the national average).
* Regular gardeners are more likely to be females (60%) than males (40%).
* 14% of regular gardeners use gardening/landscaping services for their homes.
* 93% of regular gardeners own their own home. 71% live in a single-detached home.
* The top four media for reaching regular gardeners in terms of yesterday’s exposure are: TV (90%), radio (86%) daily papers (58%) and Internet (54%).
* When compared to the national average, regular gardeners are 1.5 times more likely to read home and gardening, art and antique, 50-plus and senior focused magazines.
Source: BBM RTS Canada Spring ’06, individuals 12+
The preceding information is from BBM RTS, a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 60,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Canada. For more information contact Craig Dorning of BBM Canada: cdorning@bbm.ca.
Nothing says thanks like a blowfish
Not content with its aggressive and ubiquitous TV and print campaign promoting its home phone service, Rogers is mailing offers for 1,000 free concert tickets to an August 31st performance by Hootie & the Blowfish (at, where else, the Rogers Centre) to home phone subscribers.
Laguna Beach and other MTV hits now available on ExpressVu and Rogers on Demand
Courtesy of MTV, Bell Canada and Rogers, a lineup of MTV hits is now free for the dialing for ExpressVu and Rogers on Demand customers. They include season one of Laguna Beach, Real World, Viva La Bam and The Real World: Austin. Shows to be added in the coming months include Jackass, Pimp My Ride, Punk’d, Wild ‘n Out and Wildboyz.
Laguna Beach is turning into such a phenom that a recent report from Youthography raved that the series had ‘struck teen drama gold’ and opined that, ‘although MTV in Canada has yet to release any measured media numbers publicly, our expectation is that both Laguna Beach and The Hills will show good results in the Canadian market … and only continue to perform as a notable aspect of youth culture here in Canada.
