Discovery launches The Greatest Ever
Discovery Channel is about to preem The Greatest Ever, an hour-long series analyzing a ‘top 10’ of modern marvels such as fighter planes and sport cars. The series will air weekly, beginning Thursday, Sept. 15 at 8 p.m.
MPG picks up new SVP, HR
MPG has tapped Dan Relton, formerly of CGI North America, as SVP of human resources at MPG, the media division of marcom group Havas. Relton will be based at the agency’s North American headquarters in New York City.
PMB Factoid
Bubble gum chewing – by age
Taxi goes big for Nike
It’s a bird, it’s a plane – it’s a 50-ft.-tall Jarome Iginla hanging off a crane! This is just one of several ‘statement pieces’ Toronto-based ad shop Taxi did for the new Nike 45 campaign, which aims to drive traffic to nikehockey.ca and features hockey superstars Iginla and Markus Naslund. Other impressive media buys include a 150-ft.-tall billboard in Calgary, one of the biggest outdoor pieces in history and a floating billboard circling around Vancouver Harbour.
BBM Commercial Tracking
Please open the attached link to view BBM’s Commercial Television Tracking Service GRPS by week and month for Montreal Franco covering the broadcast months of October 2004 to July 2005 inclusive. GRPS are based on commercial minute ratings for Adults 25-54.
Klymkiw to depart CBC
Slawko Klymkiw, executive director of network programming for CBC Television since 1996, is stepping down at the end of the month. His next move is as yet unknown. EVP Richard Stursberg has asked Eva Czigler to step up to the plate as acting executive director of network programming. Czigler has worked closely with Klymkiw for many years, so Stursberg says he hopes this will ease the transition.
Stursberg says Klymkiw has maintained and grown audiences for CBC. He championed such successful programming as Canada: A People’s History and Trudeau. Klymkiw was with the CBC for 25 years.
Corner Gas takes its comedy on tour
Corner Gas star Brent Butt is taking his you-know-what across Canada in a season three promo of the hit CTV show. CTV Presents Corner Gas Live! Stand-up Tour will begin Sept. 25 in Vancouver and then hit Calgary, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa-Gatineau and finally Toronto. The live theatre show will have other Corner Gas stars dropping in for intimate and interactive Q&A sessions and to provide behind-the-scenes scoop. According to net spokesperson Jim Quan, sponsorship and product placement opps are available. CTV will be supporting the live show through print and radio buys in each market in addition to on-air promos and contests. Tickets go on sale on Monday, Aug. 22 on Ticketmaster. Both the TV and live-theatre show targets 18-34s. The homegrown comedy saw a per-episode average audience of 1.5 million viewers last season, according to Nielsen.
Notes from the media landscape: floating ads
The world as depicted in sci-fi novels has arrived. Evanston, Ill.-based IO2 Technology announced this week an innovative ad technology that can show videos in space. Read: without the help of a screen. Heliodisplays, as they are called, went on the market this week. According to Cox News Service, viewing areas equivalent to a 15-inch monitor cost US$18,600. Heliodisplays use lasers to track someone’s hands as they approach the display, translating that hand’s movement into the equivalent of a virtual mouse.
www.io2technology.com
Rogers releases viral to promo Cup
Talk about getting the most out of your brand. Rogers has released a viral email campaign called Picture Yourself a Pro to create buzz around the Rogers Cup. On Tuesday, Aug. 16, an e-mail from someone you know will have hit your inbox with a subject line that reads: ‘I’m on the cover of this month’s Maclean’s!’ Open the e-mail and you will see a Maclean’s cover with a shot of tennis great Andre Agassi and your pal on it. A button will lead you to yet another screen, complete with animation and an invitation to ‘place your image here.’ It then allows you to upload an image of yourself on the cover of either Chatelaine or Maclean’s (both Rogers titles, of course) to send to friends. Event sponsors Sony Ericsson and Adidas logos appear on either cover.
‘This creative viral campaign is to create buzz around the Rogers Cup event,’ confirms Heather Armstrong, SVP, communications. ‘As a secondary objective, it enables us to collect names of people who are interested in receiving information and offers from Rogers via e-mail. When [the viral message] works, users will pass it on to other users and it could create an exponential growth in the messages’ reach and visibility.’
The campaign, created by Toronto-based agency Mindblossom, runs until Aug. 21.
http://www.pictureyourselfapro.com/
BBM Media Snapshot: Canadians travelling to Europe
* 2.2 million Canadians (8%) travelled to Europe during the last two years.
* Canadians over 60 years of age have the highest incidence (1.4 times more than the national average) of European travel.
* Females (56%) travelled slightly more than males (44%) during the last two years.
* The average personal yearly income if those travelling to Europe is $40,200. The Canadian average is $31,000.
* The U.K. was visited by 41% of travellers, France by 30%, and Italy by 18%. 26% went to other countries.
* The average cost of their last vacations was $3,100 (two times more than the national average).
* 37% (2.3 times more than the national average) are members of Aeroplan; 17% (2.1 times more than the national average) are members of other airline frequent flyer program.
* In terms of yesterday exposure, the top three media for Canadians who travelled to Europe during the last two years are: radio (85%), TV (84%) and Internet (63%).
* Their favourite radio formats are: news/talk (1.6 times the national average), adult contemporary and classical/fine arts (2.5 times more than the national average).
* The top Internet activities for these travellers is to access current news (1.2 times national average), read online newspapers (1.4 times the national average), and purchase products or services (1.3 times the national average).
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’04 / Spring ’04, 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.
Star! shines light on fall programming slate
Star!’s fall season begins Tuesday, Sept. 6. New series will unspool as follows:
Star! Daily preems Sept. 6 at 6:30 p.m., bringing viewers entertainment news from the HQ of Star!, MuchMusic and FashionTelevision.
Big Hollywood Countdown debuts Friday, Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m. It’s a half-hour counting down Hollywood’s biggest, best, worst and weirdest.
Host Joel McHale stirs The Soup Saturdays, beginning Sept. 17 at 6:30 p.m. The show looks at the week’s celeb news with a soupçon of goofy reality clips stirred in.
And what would a channel be without a reality series? In Fight for Fame, Star! follows five young actor wannabes as they compete to be signed by a major Hollywood talent agency. The show airs Thursdays at 9 p.m., beginning Sept. 22.
In Party @ The Palms, Jenny McCarthy invites viewers to a sexy party at Las Vegas’s wild hot spot, the Palms Casino Hotel. The crew catches those already doing strange things and, if they’re not, dream up challenges (sometimes clothing optional) to get the party going. The fun starts Sunday, Sept. 25 at 11 p.m.
Star!’s demographic is adults 18-49 and 25-54, skewing slightly higher towards females.
Three nets team for live soccer coverage
In a joint initiative, Rogers Sportsnet, TSN and CTV are banding together to provide complete coverage of soccer’s 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany. Sportsnet acquired the Canadian broadcast rights last November and under an English-language sub-licensing arrangement, Sportsnet and TSN will cover all the tournament matches live up to the final which will be broadcast on CTV on July 9/06.
This marks the first time all tournament matches will be televised live in Canada, according to a Sportsnet release. The channel and TSN will air encores of the matches in prime time, and will also televise pre- and post-game shows for each match. The nets say the event has ‘huge mass audience appeal.’ The FIFA World Cup, which begins June 9/06, will see 32 national teams competing in 12 German cities, culminating in Berlin, the host city for the final match on July 9.
Bravo touts authors, bathroom opera singers
Specialty channel Bravo has pulled back the (shower) curtains on two new shows for fall. Literature Alive is a 13-part doc series profiling Canadian-Caribbean writers and shows the Caribbean fiction thread that runs from the 1960s through to hip-hop. The show preems Oct. 6 and will air Thursdays at 8 p.m.
On a lighter note, Bathroom Divas: So You Wanna Be…An Opera Star! gives amateur sings from across the spectrum and the country the chance to become the ‘bathroom diva.’ In this six-part series, six candidates are chosen for intensive training with one winning an opportunity to perform live on-stage. Let the warbling begin Saturday, Jan. 7, time TBA.
Event
Sept 21
Internet Day
Toronto
www.adclubto.com
The Advertising Club of Toronto presents keynote Angus Reid, president of Angus Reid Consulting and CEO of Vision Critical. The half-day also includes an examination of how marketers can make a bigger impact online and stay ahead of the changing consumer.
Broadband advertising in its infancy in Canada
Advertisers are doing everything they can to get themselves noticed and with a high concentration of broadband penetration in Canada, it’s no surprise that broadband ads – the newest and (it seems) latest media frontier — are appearing wherever they can. Log on to any news site and you’ll see video to complement content. In the U.S., this was the second year for a broadband upfront market, signaling yet another up-and-coming player in the race to net eyeballs.
In Canada, the vehicle is just starting to catch fire. Among the few examples up and running, ZenithOptimedia has just this week launched a campaign for Pizza Pops that invites users to send a pizza splat to friends. Within the ad is the ability to track how many people type in an e-mail address, how many screensavers are downloaded and more.
