Attendance at sporting events when on vacation; by age

CANNES: Men are misunderstood. By the media and by marketers. This according to Leo Burnett Worldwide, which after extensive research found that over 74% of males globally don’t relate to advertising geared right at them.

Leo B delivered the news at a seminar in Cannes yesterday titled ‘Metros vs. Retros: Are Marketers Missing Real Men?’ The answer, apparently, is sort of.

In a ‘really important extension’ of its relationship with MasterCard, Montreal’s Marketel has been assigned the credit card purveyor’s national media buying and planning account. Caroline Gagnon, VP media, will be heading up the team working on the business.

Although it’s such early days that no projects are in the works yet, Jane Williams, Marketel’s VP client services, says: ‘This is a very important client for us and we’re very pleased that we’re going to be running the national account.’ She adds that Marketel has been doing a lot of creative work for MasterCard for a number of years, adapting its global campaign for Quebec, ‘so this is a really important extension for us to have the national media buying and planning contract.’ Marketel is a member of McCann Worldgroup, which manages the MasterCard account internationally.

Sympatico/MSN has joined ID!A, Innovations in Digital Advertising Group, a cross-industry organization working to develop formats and standards that will make digital advertising more viable for advertisers. This includes the creation of on-demand advertising standards and opportunities, and the reconciliation of any technical issues that could growth of this area of the industry.

Sympatico/MSN is the first Canadian company to join the organization and will be focusing on enhancing on-demand opportunities for advertisers on TV, Web and mobile communications platforms. ID!A members include over 40 executives involved in on-demand TV from advertisers and agencies; the cable, satellite and conventional broadcast industries; technology companies to programmers from ABC/ESPN, Discovery, MTV, Scripps, Turner, and TVGuide.

Dailies are basking in a summer spend spree. This category experienced steady growth from 2001 through 2004 with daily newspapers garnering the majority of the investment, ranging from a high of 69.8% to 63% to its lowest in 2003. TV is a distant second and clocked in with a high of 18.9% last year. Not surprisingly, the hotel chains and hotels & resorts segments were the biggest spenders, followed by sporting goods stores.

A desirable target group for many advertisers is the younger demographic of 18- to 34-year-olds. This target is becoming increasingly difficult to reach using some traditional media and is the demo that many new free daily print publications such as Metro, Dose and 24 Hours are seeking.

18-34s are considered by many to be ‘media grazers’:
* 27% can’t be reached with daily newspapers in B.C.
* 32% can’t be reached with radio in B.C.
* 50% are light TV watchers, watching less than 9.5 hours weekly.

But in British Columbia, community newspapers reach 68% of 18-34s with weekday editions compared to daily newspapers with a 41% weekday reach.

Source: ComBase 2003-2004 Study
ComBase, the Community Newspaper Database, is a syndicated consumer-media survey of more than 400 Canadian markets that provides market-by-market information. It is an initiative of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and its nearly 700 members across the country. For more information, contact Kelly Levson, senior project manager, kellylevson@combase.ca.

Toronto-based AOL Canada has named Jonathan Lister as VP, audience. This is a newly created division within the interactive services company combining media sales and publishing with a focus on advertisers. Lister will oversee strategy for Web audience expansion and ad sales across AOL properties. He was previously senior director, media sales.

Our Montreal grid for the fall 2005 TV season has been updated to include CBC in addition to SRC. Please click on the link below to view the revised grid.
Programming Grids for Fall TV

There will be Canucks celebrating on the Croisette tonight, as two Media Lions and one gold in Direct were just nabbed by Canadian agencies in Cannes. Toronto-based The Media Company and Cossette Media won a Media Lion apiece for their campaigns ‘Is Your Lipstick Still On?’ (Covergirl) and ‘Nike Speed’ respectively. Meanwhile, Montreal-based Diesel Canada clinched a Gold Lion for its work for Guru Bicycle Corp.

Doug Checkeris, president and CEO of The Media Company and a Media judge at Cannes, says he is thrilled to have a Lion under his belt this year. (TMC was also shortlisted for Nokia’s ‘Hello Toronto’ campaign.) ‘The Covergirl campaign was simple genius,’ he says. ‘It had a great consumer insight and access (to the target).’ The effort incorporated chips being imbedded in washroom mirrors to communicate with women in bars and clubs. As a judge, Checkeris saw 400 of the 1,100 total media entries and says the winning initiatives demonstrated a clear insight into the consumer, were engaging as well as scaleable and also had the results to prove their effectiveness. ‘There are no new ideas, the question is what makes an application more creative,’ he adds.

Media in Canada Op/Ed columnist David Bray is SVP of Hennessy & Bray Communications in Toronto.

In the world of Canadian media research, the Unity Project has been one of the most ambitious endeavours in recent years, one that sparked considerable discussion and debate. As with anything of this import, opinions seem to be divided regarding implementation. Let’s take a look at Unity from both sides.

The initiative has been spearheaded by the Canadian Media Directors’ Council, more specifically by well-known media director Hugh Dow. Dow terms it ‘our attempt to bring some order to Canadian media audience and project usage data.’