A new campaign launched yesterday by the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada has the rumps of 151 TTC buses plastered with butts to raise awareness for colorectal cancer.
Tag Archives: TTC
Christ and Bigfoot ride the bus together
2 DecFrom POSTMEDIA: Christ meets Big Foot: more irreverent atheist ads to hit Canadian cities by Carmen Chai
The atheist group (Centre For Inquiry) behind last year’s controversial bus ads suggesting “there’s probably no God” is rolling out a provocative new set of posters on buses across the country that places Allah beside Big Foot and Christ beside psychics.
The new posters bear the slogan: “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence” with “Allah, Big Foot, UFOs, Homeopathy, Zeus, Psychics, Christ” listed below.
They will hit Toronto streetcars in January, pending final approval from the Toronto Transit Commission, said Justin Trottier, national executive director of the Centre for Inquiry, an atheist organization. After the Toronto debut, the organization plans to post the ads to buses in Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, Saskatoon and Montreal.
TVO sings to commuters and journalists for new campaign
2 DecFrom Marketing Magazine by Chris Powell
Ontario’s public broadcaster TVO was feeling “very superstitious” when it began promoting its first ever Music Week.
To announce the week-long programming event, which begins Sunday, it enlisted two 30-person choirs disguised as regular commuters to deliver an a cappella rendition of the Stevie Wonder song “Superstition” to surprised onlookers at four Toronto subway stations.
The impromptu performances were complemented by on-site signage, while “concert shirts” listing the week’s Music Week programming were also distributed. Video of the performances will be posted on TVO’s YouTube channel and linked via both its Twitter feed and Facebook site.
Steve Rayment, TVO’s director of marketing, said Wednesday’s event was part of a wide-ranging promotional campaign–TVO’s “single largest” campaign of the year, he said–that includes on-air promotion on TVO, an extensive online buy targeting news and information websites, posters on regional trains and a PR program highlighted by a survey conducted by Angus Reid Strategies to determine the role music plays in Ontario residents’ lives.
“One of the things we’ve been trying to do over the last two years is re-establish TVO in people’s minds as a great source of content–whether online or on-air,” said Rayment. “Because we think our content surprises people in a positive way, we wanted to surprise them in another way.”
Leo Burnett and Praxis PR developed the campaign, while MBS oversaw the media buy. Praxis also developed a news release sent to selected media members directing them to a video of professional singers performing a song mentioning each recipient by name.
According to Rayment, TVO’s marketing has become a “lot bolder” since it appointed Leo Burnett as its agency of record two years ago. “One of the things we all agreed on is that we needed to establish a stronger connection with the public,” he said.
One of last year’s marketing efforts, in which Canadian author Tish Cohen Tweeted an original short story to promote the premiere of the four-part documentary series Empire of the Word, was a gold winner at the recent CMA Awards.
