Greenfield named managing director at Tribal DDB in Toronto
Chris Greenfield has been appointed managing director at Toronto-based Tribal DDB. Prior to this post, Greenfield lead an internal group at Canadian Tire, which fostered a culture of innovation and creativity. Greenfield was also acting president of online advergaming firm, Fuel Industries. As managing director, he is responsible for people development, client management and revenue growth.
PMB Factoid
Game show watchers; by region
Axe Dry sponsors a TV show – with no product placement
If the Axe brand were a guy, he’d likely be full-on with the ladies. And so wouldn’t he be best to teach guys 18-24 about how to dodge the ‘Gamekillers’? The iconic personal care brand is set to launch the Gamekillers campaign in Canada in support of the launch of new antiperspirant, Axe Dry. Gamekillers is based on the notion that there are characters in life that keep guys from hooking up with girls. Visit Gamekillers.com and you’ll be introduced to characters such as the One-Upper, or the Mother Hen or the Mess. The site also features downloadable ringtone, mini-movies and desktop backgrounds. Central to the campaign is a branded Gamekillers reality TV special originally produced for MTV in the U.S. by Bartle Bogle Hegarty and @radical.media (both of New York). In Canada, Gamekillers will air on Saturday, April 22 at 10 p.m. on the Comedy Network. And while the show is sponsored by the brand, don’t bother searching for Axe Dry to make its expected appearance in the background. Instead, two TV spots (called ‘show-mercials’) were created around the program to mimic the look and content of the show – animated vignettes that detail the do’s and don’t’s when confronted with a Gamekiller, followed by the tag line: ‘Keep your cool. Axe Dry.’
Starcom unleashes interactive, online Lego campaign
SMG is doing its part to foster an online community among long-time client Lego’s target of boys 6-11. As part of an awareness strategy for the toymaker’s new Bionicle action figure line, the agency created integrated advertorial within YTV.com and an online badge-earning promo within Bolt.com. On YTV’s site, a leaderboard ad bearing the creative for Piraka (the Bionicle ‘gang’ name) blasts a hole in a game button within the site. Click on the button and you’re redirected to the Lego Bionicle site. ‘The banner interacts directly with the content,’ says Kevin Hung, supervisor at Toronto-based SMG. ‘And we’ve received positive feedback and a general sales lift for Bionicle.’
On social networking site Bolt.com last week, SMG released a five-week online badge program whereby kids earn a different badge each week (to customize their Bolt.com profile page) if they correctly answer questions about the Piraka gang. Of course, to answer correctly, they must visit the Bionicles site to find out more about the characters, creating a dialogue between brand and demo, says Hung. In the first 12 hours, the Bionicle campaign on Bolt.com experienced a 54% user participation. Creative and media were handled by SMG.
Traffic grows in Ontario and the west
Traffic now has its outdoor ad displays on 50 shopping centre properties across the country thanks to a newly-signed deal with Montreal-based development and management firm Ivanhoe Cambridge that calls for installations on site at 11 shopping malls in Ontario and B.C. Traffic has offices Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal and specializes in indoor and outdoor products for shopping centres. It is part of Media Group, which also owns SPEED Promotions. Ivanhoe Cambridge, also operates in the U.S. and Europe.
Entertainment and retail categories battle for gold – Eloda analysis for April 7-12, 2006
Entertainment and retail categories are in the midst of a spring push. The former stole 16% of the TV ad variety pie for the week of April 7-12, while retail grabbed 17%. And in a comparison of most new TV ads between the French and English markets last week, categories public service and entertainment each tallied at 24%, while in French Canada, entertainment and automotive tied at 14% apiece. Check out others topping the charts, and which brands had the most new spots. This info was gathered through Montreal-based ELODA’s online TV ad tracking, auditing and viewing services. All data supplied is based on the ELODA recording grid.
http://www.eloda.com
Ikea leaps up the charts: Top radio ads – Media Monitors for April 10-16, 2006
Ikea leapt up the charts in last week’s race for brand with the most spots on rotation on Toronto airwaves. The home furnishings brand climbed its way from number 455 all the way to number three. At the top sits Sears Canada, with RBC stealing the silver. Check out others topping the radio charts by category and brand in the Toronto market for the week of April 10-16, 2006.
http://www.mediamonitors.com
Sweetmama to give birth to new online newsletter tomorrow
The folks at Sweetspot.ca are set to give birth tomorrow to a spinoff weekly e-newsletter product called Sweetmama.ca. ‘The newsletter will come out on Wednesdays,’ explains Lisa Nash, director of sales and business development. ‘And in the fall, it will go up to twice a week.’ Sweetmama has already garnered more than 2000 opt-ins, she says. Nash explains that Sweetmama (aimed at new and expectant moms) will start off as a national edition but the company hopes to localize it in the fall, following Sweetspot’s model, which has Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver editions. When pressed for a key differentiator, Nash says: ‘We’re all about tangible shopping with a fun angle. There are a lot of sites with advice for moms right now, but we’re all about consumption. We always feature something you can purchase.’ Opportunities for advertisers include banners, text links and sponsored links.
Notes from the media landscape: Land Rover creates a Web TV channel
Land Rover is going beyond traditional marketing with the launch of a branded Internet TV channel entitled Go Beyond TV. The site will eventually play host to an online community where Rovers can upload their own adventures. Original content segments include real people living real adventures, with content culled from partners Discovery Channel and BBC, including a feature on Lance Armstong among others. Viewers will be redirected from the landrover.com site to Go Beyond and later, the channel will be a standalone. The effort has The Young & Rubicam Brands at the helm, with input from Mediaedge:cia and MindShare.
Bravo! debuts Mozart series
Bravo! is celebrating Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 250th birthday with a six-part series on the famous composer told through re-enactments and musical vignettes. Portraits of Mozart will debut on Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m.
HGTV takes it outside with two new series
Designer Kelly Deck brings the indoors out, creating outdoor versions of a living room, family room or kitchen. Take It Outside premieres on Tuesday, June 6 at 8 p.m. Then, beginning on Sunday, June 11 at 10:30 a.m., the pros show HGTV viewers how to solve common landscaping problems such as adding privacy, colour and shape to a garden on Landscape Solutions. Both shows are 30 minutes long.
Event
AdAid
June 13
Gladstone Hotel, Toronto
416.778.7922
AdAid is a party and silent auction to benefit Medicins Sans Frontier on behalf of the survivors of the Pakistani earthquake.
CRTC takes hands-off approach to mobile TV
The CRTC has ruled that mobile TV services offered by Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, and Telus Mobility are exempt from regulation under its New Media Exemption Order.
Additionally, the Commission is asking for input from Canadians on its proposal to exempt mobile TV services delivered and accessed over the Internet. This is all very good news for Canadian advertisers and consumers says Nick Barbuto, director of interactive solutions at Cossette Media in Toronto.
Yellow Pages deploys offbeat OOH
Cossette Montreal is painting the town yellow for Yellow Pages in a tongue-in-cheek OOH campaign touting the company’s online directory at YellowPages.ca. The agency has deployed innovative media at Montreal and Calgary airports. One execution, entitled ‘sleeping dummy’, has a mannequin sprawled out on a bench. A nearby sign bears the YellowPages.ca ad www.5 star hotel within 5km.ca. In Montreal’s Trudeau airport, a beat-up yellow suitcase sits within the luggage carousel with the message: www.une valise neuve ça presse.ca (nearest luggage store). Other executions include 1,500 luggage trolleys bearing campaign creative. Meanwhile, across Canada, the brand has deployed Zoom media messages including stickers on mirrors and in gym locker rooms bearing appropriate messages such as www.dating service because I’m looking pretty darn good.ca, among others. Across Canada, Yellow Pages has also bought 10′ x 20′ highway billboards, as well as transit shelter ads. Cossette Media planned the buy.
