Event
April 27
Sponsorship Marketing Council of Canada: Annual Conference & Sponsorship Marketing Awards
Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Toronto
416.964.3805
www.sponsorshipmarketing.ca
Conference topics include ‘Soccer’s Global Juggernaut – The View from FIFA,’ presented by Jérôme Valcke, director of Zurich-based FIFA’s marketing & TV division. Valcke will discuss how the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, world football’s governing body, works with sponsors to ensure they receive a maximum return on their marketing investments.
Toronto gets a soccer team and stadium; searches for sponsors
A new team is coming to town and along with it, a new stadium to be built on Toronto’s Exhibition grounds slated for spring 2007. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) is bringing soccer to Toronto via a yet-to-be-named team under the New York-based Major League Soccer (MLS) umbrella. The Toronto team’s new home, a 20,000-seat stadium, is searching for naming rights by way of sponsorship now.
SRG: Ethnic Canucks name their preferred media brands
Solutions Research Group (srgnet.com) has found that while ethnic media is strong, some of Canada’s top mainstream media brands are also quite popular with the country’s ethnic consumers, particularly television. In its Diversity in Canada study, the Toronto-based market research firm found that about half of Chinese and South Asian Canadians are reached by English-language newspapers and radio while 65% to 74% can be reached by English TV. Canada’s population increases by one million new Canadians every four years. Right now nearly five million ethnic consumers are located in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal – the cities that SRG focused on when conducting its Diversity in Canada research.
In addition to media habits, the study profiles the lifestyle habits, social perspectives, and brand usage of Black Canadians as well as those of Chinese, South Asian, West Asian, Hispanic, and Italian background.
Fresh Events launches mobile video truck
Thornhill, ON-based OOH company Fresh Events is launching Mobile Video Signs (MVS) media in Canada. Picture a truck with digital video screens, providing nearly 100 square feet of ad space at 6’x8′ per panel. Now picture the video screens with the technology to play full streaming video and audio. In Florida, the MVS vehicle has touted products from brands such as Adidas, Foot Locker and Fuji. ‘They’ve been very receptive in the U.S. because it’s digital and it’s mobile,’ says Phil Elmaleh, managing partner at Fresh Events. Elmaleh adds that the company has plans to circulate the truck around the GTA in April and in the summer, they’ll be launching their After Dark program. ‘We’ll be hitting the entertainment district, targeting the 18-34 demo and going after the beverage and lifestyle brands,’ he says. The truck holds 10 ad faces, and campaigns cost between $1300-1500 per day for two spots to a max of $4500 for all ad faces. MVS is able to play digital video content without much modification, saving on production costs for potential advertisers.
http://www.freshevents.ca
They put ads where? Salon patrons get nailed with ads on emery boards and oranges tout new EA game
New York-based alternative OOH company Ambient Planet is taking advantage of the captive audience that is the gals at the nail bar. Branded emery boards are being given away in more than 5,000 beauty salons across the U.S. as part of a promo push for the BBC America series, Footballers Wive$. Talk about demo-appropriate. In addition to traditional product samples, other types of in-salon advertising offered by Ambient Planet include branded aprons for staff, t-shirts, manicure mats and nail decals.
Meanwhile, game giant Electronic Arts unleashed thousands of oranges throughout Chicago, New York and San Francisco streets in a bid to pump The Godfather: The Game. The fruit bear a sticker with a call to action, directing folks to a website promoting the new game. In the movie trilogy, oranges are a symbol for renewal.
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians who enjoy snowmobiling
* Two million Canadians (8%) snowmobile regularly or sometimes.
* Canadians 12 to 24 years old are one and a half times more likely to snowmobile.
* Males (58%) are slightly more likely to snowmobile.
* Atlantic Canada and the Prairie Provinces (both with 10%) have the highest incidence of snowmobiling but Ontario and Quebec are close behind (both with 8%).
* Sports and activities related with speed seem to be preferred by this group. Snowmobilers participate in jet skiing, water skiing, and power boating two to three times more than the national average.
* When analyzing magazine titles read, snowmobilers are 1.7 times more likely to read Playboy, 1.6 times more likely to read Seventeen and 1.6 times more likely to read Maxim, compared to the national averages.
* 15% own a family cottage (one and half times more than the national average).
* The top media by yesterday exposure are: TV (87%), radio (85%), and Internet (64%).
* Snowmobilers are 1.7 times more likely to prefer AOR/mainstream rock and 1.4 more likely to prefer mainstream Top 40/CHR, when comparing their favourite radio formats to the national averages.
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’04 / Spring ’05
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.
National Geographic explores rainforests and men on the moon with new series
Journey into Amazonia makes its Canadian premiere on Thursday, May 18 at 9 p.m. The three-part, hour-long series delves deep into the rainforest examining the wildlife within. Friday, May 19 at 9 p.m. sees the debut of Space Race, a four-parter that follows Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong before their feats made them famous.
PMB Factoid
Video gamers (past month); by age
Canadian brands will get MTV six different ways
Thirsty for your MTV? You’re about to be satiated – six different ways. The MTV drought ends at 6 p.m. tonight and in anticipation of its Canadian launch, MTV unveiled a six-pronged strategy to net eyeballs across every platform it can. The ‘Six Arms of MTV’ incorporates distribution through conventional and specialty channels, mobile, video on demand (VOD), branded live events at the Masonic Temple and through MTV Overdrive, a broadband on-demand service.
Kraft Hockeyville 2006 debuts March 29
Canada is abuzz with hockey fever and new CBC series Kraft Hockeyville is out to capture the town that exemplifies just that. The seven-part, hour-long show will debut on Wednesday, March 29 at 8 p.m. live from Kingston, Ont. Host Cameron Bancroft will be joined by special guests musician Colin James, actor Jason Priestley and hockey godfather Don Cherry. At the end of the series run, the winning Canuck community will win a $50,000 from the Home Depot for upgrades to the town’s hockey arena, plus $10,000 in hockey equipment from CCM/Reebok. The winning community will also play host to a live exhibition game between two Canadian NHL teams.
Kraft Canada president Dino Bianco says the program has already hit its goal for Kraft, establishing the company as an innovative marketer and allowing them to connect with consumers across multiple touch points including web and in-store. Kraft has even had to re-order in-store displays due to wide retail support and has had inquiries from expat Canuck communities for as far afield as California and even Taiwan. The food giant, which developed the promo via its consumer promotions group, is tracking results via store display audits, web and PR hits. Other Hockeyville partners include Home Depot and the NHL. Media deals were handled by Starcom Mediavest (for Kraft) and Initiative Media (for The Home Depot).
Tetris blocks run amok in GTA sampling program
Richmond, BC-based Nintendo of Canada has unleashed oversized Tetriminos (Tetris blocks) all over Toronto as part of a promo push for its next generation Tetris DS game which launched yesterday. Tetris ‘construction workers’ touting the puzzle game are encouraging pedestrians to play the real-life version with the super-sized Tetriminos through the week at various venues including the intersection of Yonge and Bloor, the Ryerson University campus, Union Station and more. The street team effort, created by Toronto-based brand experience agency Inventa, reached 18,000 folks last week. Promo launch plans for Tetris DS include print, OOH, web, web, cinema and radio executions. Media buys were done by Starcom Worldwide, with creative by Leo Burnett Chicago.
David Le, marketing manager for Nintendo says: ‘People have been running up to our Inventa event staff, asking to try the game. They have even been asking if they can pose in Tetris-like Tetrimino shapes with the blocks and get their picture taken.’ The sampling program ends March 24.
Retail begins its big spring push: Top TV ads – Eloda analysis for March 10-16, 2006
Retail pushed past entertainment last week to the number one spot in the race for the category with the largest variety of TV ads on the Canadian English market for March 10-16. The top category came in at 17%, with entertainment hurrying along at 13%. 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
Hyundai dealers leap up the charts: Top radio ads – Media Monitors for March 6-12, 2006
Telus Mobility hangs on to the top spot for yet another week, followed closely by retail giant Sears Canada in the race for brands with the most spots on rotation in the Toronto market. Leaping up the hill to the number three spot were Toronto-area Hyundai dealers, moving from the number 15 spot the previous week. Check out others topping the radio charts by category and brand in the Toronto market for the week of March 6-12, 2006.
http://www.mediamonitors.com
New desktop app helps simplify data analysis
Global Market Insite (GMI) has launched Research Analyzer (researchanalyzer.com), a desktop-based data analysis, reporting and publishing tool to help researchers churn through mounds of market research data faster and in a more organized and uncluttered work environment. Research data can be imported from a variety of sources; reports can be published and distributed at the click of a mouse to a wide audience quickly using various standard publishing channels such as HTML, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and XML.
Features include a standard Windows user interface for easy navigation and drag and drop functionality; cross-table analysis with an ultra-fast analysis engine that allows analysis of one million or more respondents simultaneously and an unlimited number of questions per interview; top line reporting; a graph creation wizard; and customizable style sheets. With the Super Dig feature, users select a target group and questions to analyze, and then generates a list of the answers that correlate the most and the least with the target group.
Research Analyzer will be available in early April from Seattle-based GMI (gmi-mr.com), a global company providing integrated solutions to market research firms and corporate market research departments. It has Canadian offices in Vancouver and Toronto.
