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Sympatico/.MSN sends do-gooders to Cannes and launch new classifieds
Sympatico/.MSN has initiated a contest open to Canadian agency creatives who have designed a campaign for a Canadian registered charity. The first-place winner scores a $50,000 media campaign for its cause on www.Sympatico.MSN.ca as well as a $7,500 trip to Cannes to attend the Cyber Lions. Second prize is a $30,000 campaign and third is a $20,000 campaign. Entries are being accepted from now until May 6 at http://www.designabetterworld.com.
In other Sympatico news, www.LesPAC.com, the most-used classified ad service in Quebec, is now available to surfers in the rest of Canada, through its English-language version CanadianBargain, accessible via the classifieds section on the www.Sympatico.MSN.ca English portal. ‘The success and the popularity of this service have continued to grow among Sympatico.MSN.ca French portal users since its arrival on our Web site in 2003 and we are confident this trend will continue throughout Canada,’ said Patrick Lauzon, VP sales Sympatico.MSN.ca, in a release.
Showcase hitches Trailer Park Boys campaign to hockey
Specialty net Showcase rolled out a major multimedia campaign yesterday to support the launch of season five of its hoser hit Trailer Park Boys. The effort includes outdoor, print and on-air executions as well as a cross-country publicity tour. An online element at http://www.Showcase.ca/TrailerParkBoys features contests and other interactivity. The campaign’s hockey theme touts the boys as national cultural icons who have taken up the TV slack during the hockey strike.
In the print ad, they are dressed in hockey gear and pictured on the front of hockey cards. The slogan: ‘Canada’s Got a New Favourite Pastime.’ Packs of the cards (complete with ‘statistics’) will be used as promotional giveaways. ‘We’d like to thank the NHL for giving us a great creative hook this year,’ says Walter Levitt, SVP of marketing and creative services at Showcase’s owner Alliance Atlantis Communications. The season begins Sunday, April 17 at 9 p.m.
The outdoor and print campaign was created by FCB Canada. The on-air creative and media placement were handled in-house. Last year TPB enjoyed a successful season with the first-run shows making it the highest-rated Canadian series on specialty TV. While the show’s core audience is men 18-34, the fan base also includes older demos and women.
Vision honours the pope
Multi-faith broadcaster VisionTV will be celebrating the life and legacy of Pope John Paul II in a series of specials that began last night with the documentary John Paul II: Almost an Autobiography which will air again on Wednesday, April 6, at 12:00 a.m. Still to come are a special edition of Vision’s flagship current affairs series 360 Vision which features an hour’s discussion with a multi-faith panel (Wednesday, April 6 at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m.)
On Friday, April 8 at 7 p.m., the net presents full coverage of The Requiem Mass of Pope John Paul II from St. Peter’s Square in Rome, with English commentary. Vision is also planning to air a new episode of the VisionTV/BBC documentary series Absolute Truth. ‘Election of a Pope – White Smoke’ takes an inside look at the process by which the pontiff’s successor will be chosen.
Off to the races
TSN is set to race around the world with this year’s Champ Car World Series, providing race fans with 11 races spanning across four different countries.
Starting off in Long Beach at 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 10, this season will feature seven races from the United States, two from Mexico and one each from South Korea and Australia. The races will be broadcast periodically from April through to November and will feature the talents of Canadians Paul Tracy, Alex Tagliani and last year’s Atlantic Series Rookie of the Year, Andrew Ranger.
For a complete listing of TSN’s 2005 race schedule, visit http://www.tsn.ca.
Die-hards get Corrie specials
As if the current 10-week double-episode blitz weren’t enough, beginning Sunday, April 24, CBC will air a series of six specials focusing on different aspects of venerable ratings grabber Coronation Street. The Street Undressed looks at Corrie fashions over the past 45 years, from Hilda’s rollers to Bet’s beehive. At the other end of the spectrum, Hunks chronicles the street’s macho mechanics and fashionable factory lads.
Thibault joins Ski Press
Todd Thibault, 22-year veteran of all things skiing, is the newest addition to McMasterville, Que.’s Ski Press Media team as U.S. sales account manager and promotions director. After years in ski equipment testing, retail, movies, magazines, marketing and special events co-ordination, Thibault will be given the task of ensuring strong ties to retail for Ski Press USA. His duties will also include advertising and promotional schedules, and heading up the company’s new events and promotions department. Ski Press USA has a circulation of 625,000.
Events
April 19
Making Email Work
Second City, Toronto
(416) 760-3344
http://www.aimscanada.com
A recent Jupiter study cites e-mail deliverability and better targeting as marketers’ primary concerns for e-mail marketing this year. This session, presented by the Association of Internet Marketing & Sales, looks at how to effectively protect and leverage your invesment in e-mail communications.
April 27
AIMS Think Tank Series Presents: Morning with the Masters
National Club, Toronto
(416) 760-3344
http://www.aimscanada.com
CEOs of two leading global Internet services firms examine what’s on the horizon. Panelists include Mark Kingdon, CEO of Organic, New York, and Canada’s own Gurval Caer, CEO of Blast Radius. Presented by the Association of Internet Marketing & Sales.
PMB Factoid
16% of Canadians participate in a department store customer reward program. 25-34s are 23% more likely to belong.
PMB 2005 shows steady market
‘There’s a lot of good news for magazines,’ says PHD Canada’s Rob Young of the PMB 2005 study released yesterday. ‘If I were Rogers or Transcontinental, I’d be saying ‘yippee!”
PMB released readership data on a record number of 102 magazines. This includes more first-timers than ever before with eight English and five French pubs participating. The new books included Canadian Home & Country, Cottage Life, Fashion18, Inside Entertainment, Ottawa City, Sports Illustrated, TORO, Where Canada, Cote Jardins, En Primeur, Le Devoir, Recevoir and Styles de Vie
Product placement rakes in billions
Product placement in TV shows reached US$3.46 billion in 2004, says a study by Stamford, Conn.-based PQ Media, a custom media research firm. This reflects a 30.5% jump over the previous year and it appears that it’s only going to grow.
‘Product Placement Spending in Media 2005’ reveals that paid product placement is growing more quickly than unpaid, making up 29.2% of the market, compared to 18% in 1974. The study cites ad-skipping technology such as TiVo as triggering the boom, especially in reality series. Product placement is projected to grow another 22.7% to $4.24 billion in 2005 due to more paid placements, larger deals and increased use of PVRs.
http://www.pqmedia.com/research-publications.html
Caribana keeps on trucking
Toronto’s 38th Caribana street festival isn’t far off and MangoMoose Media is offering an alternative advertising opportunity in the form of trucks that travel the parade route on the peak day of the festival, July 31. There are five trucks still available with the advertiser’s message to be placed on both sides of the vehicle. Cost for these two faces is $3,950 and for the whole fleet (10 faces) $15,000. Ad size is 20 feet by seven feet. This is the first year Mango is offering the service. One advertiser is signed up so far: Hardknock Music of Toronto is using a truck to launch a new artist.
Caribana was created in 1967 as a community heritage project for Canada’s centennial year. Based on the Trinidad Carnival, the festival now also includes the music, dance, food and costumes of Jamaica, Guyana, the Bahamas, Brazil and other cultures represented in Toronto. It attracts about a million partygoers each year, with hundreds of thousands of people traveling from the U.S. to participate.
http://www.mangomoose.ca
http://www.caribana.com/
Juicy Fruit launches youth contest
Juicy Fruit gum is reinforcing its ‘Sweeeet’ positioning with a redesigned Web site http://www.juicyfruit.ca/. The site has been revamped to be more appealing to the gum’s target teen audience with a lot of interactivity and a colourful, graphics-driven interface.
The site plays a key role in the ‘Sweeeet Shot Contest,’ running March 27 to July 31. Participants give personal info and sink virtual basketballs to win a chance at a trip to Toronto, $500 spending money and $5,000 towards post-secondary tuition. Once in T.O., the winner attends an NBA game and takes three shots from the free-throw line. Each ball in wins them an additional $5,000, up to $20,000. There are also weekly draws for 18 iPod minis. The agency behind the initiative is BBDO.
ComBase Market Focus: Vancouver, B.C.
* More than 1,250,000 adults in Vancouver report reading a weekday or weekend edition of their local community newspaper. This is 78% of the city’s adult population.
* By comparison, 67% of adults report reading any daily newspaper (weekday or weekend).
* Almost a quarter of the Vancouver population (367,900 adults) cannot be reached with daily newspapers and only read community newspapers.
* Exclusive community newspaper readers in Vancouver tend to be female and between the ages of 25 and 34.
And when it comes to other media in Vancouver:
* 27% of adults admit they didn’t listen to any radio yesterday.
* 15% report listening to non-commercial CBC stations.
* 44% of adults report watching less than 9.5 hours of television in the past week, or less than an hour and a half a day.
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.
HGTV has designs on the generation gap
HGTV is combining family dynamics with design as two twentysomething offspring enlist a couple of young designers to redo an outdated room in their parents’ house. Called, oddly enough, My Parents’ House, the show will air Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. beginning April 5. Will the eccentric characters, sometimes charged family interaction and chic design transformations make for compelling viewing? HGTV is hoping both generations will tune in to find out.
