Canadian Sponsorship Forum 2012
Managing Director Kyle Romaniuk visited Montreal last week for the 2012 Canadian Sponsorship Forum. The Forum travels around the country each year, showcasing some of the most successful sponsorship stories in Canadian business. Never missing an opportunity to learn from an experience, Kyle took the time to document his insights and a few of the breakout ideas shared by some of the most influential thinkers in Canadian sponsorship.
Highlights from the Canadian Sponsorship Forum, 2012, Montreal
My biggest takeaway this year was the realization/validation that when you reverse-engineer what works in sponsorship, the same approach can be applied to a brand strategy, marketing plan, digital campaign, etc. Connect emotionally with your audience and create a memorable experience — this creates more impact, builds loyalty, and increases your market share.
A few other thoughts: Have a reason to exist beyond product and service; a shared purpose or mission, a story worth telling that will inspire internal and external audiences. The reason why you exist and the desired outcome should inspire the outputs. Produce a few very well executed touchpoints integrating digital, experiential and traditional to not only reach, but engage and involve your audiences.
Everything successful is built on a shared passion, belief or purpose. But, make sure an individual’s passion (even if it’s that of the CEO) doesn’t get in the way of what’s right for the brand and all of its audiences.
But enough from me. Here’s a sampling of the stand-out ideas from this years’ outstanding speakers. - K.R.
The magic number for sponsorship success – three. No more than three objectives. Set three measures. Sign up for at least three years (sponsorship always begins to maximize in year 3). No more than three activation tactics (after that it’s a waste of money and people don’t care). Three opportunities to intercept. Three minute wait time (not hours!). Three dollars per attendee.
Don Mayo, Global Managing Partner
IMI International
83% of consumers want a company to be involved with a cause, and it’s about more than just saying “proud supporter” and putting a logo on a box; it’s about integration and building commitment with customers.
Nancy Marcus, Corporate Vice President Marketing
Kruger
Switch from the four Ps to the four E’s — engagement, experience, exclusivity and emotion.
Oliver Robert Murphy, Global Head of New Business
Universal Music Group
When you combine YouTube with TV advertising, the drive brand recall is two-times higher than TV alone. Personalize everything; the ability to be unique online is extraordinary.
Nicolas Darveau-Garneau, Managing Director
Google Québec
Kyle also had a chance to check out the 30th Annual Just for Laughs Festival, the host of this year’s Sponsorship Forum. But that’s a story for another post…
Wallpaper of the Week #08 — Da Slammah!
Wallpaper of the Week #08 – “Da Slammah!” by Karla Burr is a purple monster giving an elbow drop from the top rope. This is not a euphemism.
Today’s wallpaper is inspired by something called, “CM Punk,” and, according to Karla, ”…his ever-growing beard, my love of wrestling and purple monsters.”
Again, this is not a euphemism.
Enjoy!
Wallpaper of the Week #07 — A Background You Can Count On
Inspired by counting machines, Traffic Manager Paul Duque learned to use Illustrator for the first time and created Wallpaper of the Week #07 – “Abacus”
Alan Turing would be proud.
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Wallpaper of the Week #06 — Celebrating National Bike Week
Wallpaper of the Week #06, designed by Ana Morgan, celebrates National Bike Week. The kinetic spiral geometry expresses the secret to cycling; perpetual motion. The colours employed in the work hold aloft two significant elements to the sport. The first, the fiery red tones of the right-most wheel, communicate the speed and passion of the sport. The complementary greens throw a nod to the environmental benefits presented by cycling. Finally, the connectivity and overlap of the separate components in the image show how in their best moments, the rider becomes one with the bicycle. — C.E.
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ClarkHuot/Cocoon Goes All The Way to 11
Last night, our very own Kyle Romaniuk, Chris Clarke, Anthony Kowalczyk, and Christopher Samms attended the 2012 “Devil in the Details” Signature Awards Gala Dinner, celebrating the best and brightest in Winnipeg’s advertising, design, and marketing communications industry.
And it seems our pact with the Infernal Powers Below worked — eleven Signature wins and seven runner-up awards, in categories including:
Interactive, for our work on the DECO App
Radio and Outdoor, for our work Eastern Chrysler Dodge Jeep
Logo/Brandmark winner and runner-up for WJB Capital and The Dream Factory
Two Judge’s Favourite awards for our work with The Dream Factory and the Assiniboine Park Conservancy
We also took home some very nice glass for best packaging, illustration, corporate video, and design. Of course we couldn’t have enjoyed this level of success without the trust and support of our amazing clients — something we couldn’t appreciate more. Thank you!
While Kyle, Chris, Anthony and Christopher accepted the awards on behalf of the company, many of us followed the action live by Twitter and text from 167 Lombard, grooving to the sounds of 70s Soul and 90s Hip Hop. Needless to say, the warm glowing warming glow of 11 little discs on our windowsill is keeping the atmosphere cheery in here today.
The quality this year was impressive, and we have to congratulate all of the hard-working account managers, designers, writers, and creatives whose agencies participated this year. Great work, no matter what agency produces it, betters our industry overall. We look forward to more fierce competition next year!
Finally, a big thank you to the Advertising Association of Winnipeg for organizing and hosting the event.
And now… BACK TO WORK!
Why Was Then, This is How
by Chuka Ejeckam, Communications Intern
The latest issue of Google’s Think Quarterly begins as they all do, with an impassioned soliloquy about a specific facet of the digital age. This being the Creativity Issue, the discourse revolves around the ability of technology to increase creativity, the things it makes possible. “We are never more creative than when we are kids,” it begins, terming children ‘wide-eyed and inquisitive.” It goes on to say that technology has returned to adults that sense of wonderment, allowing us to be “endlessly curious and profoundly creative.” It claims that as children our favourite question is “Why” and that as digitally-integrated adults it can now be, impressively, “Why not”.
It seems there is a point passed over here. While both are certainly honourable inquiries, they’re often more rhetorical than anything else. The crucial question now, is “How”.
Being able to blend media means your story takes life beyond any of them individually. Now, creative toes the line of reality, or even crosses that threshold completely. Think Quarterly itself represents it. The entire publication serves as an advocate for a brand fiercely expanding its offering. At some point, a Google employee answered the question, “How do we present Google as perpetual thought leader while simultaneously charming people and reinforcing the perception of us as an innovative company?” with the response “with a magazine.” With swiftly increasing possibilities in almost every medium, and concertedly in digital and ambient, there are more answers to that “How” question than there ever have been before. What Smart Car’s Argentinean Twitter account did a couple days ago is a lovely example of that.
Over the course of 420-odd tweets, BBDO Argentina created a stop-motion film of a Smart Car driving through a city past adoring onlookers, and then parking between two cars in a way only a Smart Car could. It’s a simple, pleasant experience that takes a specifically textual medium and makes it completely visual. And, it’s just cool.
See it for yourself. @SmartArg
-C.E.
Wallpaper of the Week #01 – Season Exchange: Spring Version
We went out on a limb and decided to go with a pretty radical concept for April
— Giant Insects Achieving Enlightenment Over Winnipeg Landmark Buildings.
Wait… I’ve been informed that this month’s theme is actually Spring.
ClarkHuot/Cocoon’s WOTW #01 is “Season Exchange: Spring Version,” by Design Intern Carl Shura.
Tune in each Wednesday for a spectacular new desktop wallpaper, courtesy of the Friendly Neighbourhood Creative Team at Suite #953 – 167 Lombard.
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Hot Dog — It’s Christmas!
To Our Deer Friends,
Here’s hoping you relish the yuletide season, making time to meat with old friends, and ketchup on your hobbies.
Now we have to beat it. See you in January!
Happy Holidays!
-Velocity Branding.
P.S. VELOCITYWG will return Jan. 6, with an extra-special entry by Lee Froese.
P.P.S. Mustard.
VELOCITYWG #9 — “Grant Park”
I love reading about history, but once in a while when you go digging into the past, you really learn something as disturbing as it is fascinating. We always start our neighbourhood posts with some basic knowledge of the area backed with some Internet (AKA “lazy”) research. Our Design Intern, Rebecca, from Winnipeg Technical College was reading up on this week’s entry when she came across this article by blogger Reid Dickie.
Who knew that a pleasant suburban neighbourhood in Winnipeg was once a shantytown populated by poor Métis families and rail-riding transients.
VELOCITYWG #9 is “Grant Park” by Design Intern, Rebecca Waczko
Rooster Town was the colourful name for the grim Depression-era village which formed on the outskirts of South Winnipeg. No road connection or running water, no city services, just a rail-line which provided transport in and out of the surrounding bush, and the occasional box-car sold to the poor as makeshift homes.
It’s hard to believe that just eight years after Mayor Stephen Juba had the last residents evicted and the last traces of Rooster Town were bulldozed away, Winnipeg introduced the Western Hemisphere to the state-of-the-art Pan Am Pool built for the 1967 Pan-American Games.
Rebecca’s comments:
When given the task of designing this week’s logo for Grant Park, I thought it was going to be very challenging. But once I started to dig into the history of the area it proved to be quite interesting. I chose to use the Grant’s Scottish tartan since Grant Avenue was named to commemorate Cuthbert James Grant. When I found out the remarkable history about Rooster Town, I felt it only right to pay tribute to this lost suburb. Now every time I visit the mall I’ll find it hard not to remember what it once was.
My fondest memories of Grant Park almost always involve lining up for a hotly-anticipated film (such as 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) For a fine afternoon/evening out, I suggest a nice espresso or a late at LaGrotta Market on Taylor and Waverly, take in the 60s and 70s architecture of the apartments and churches on Grant Avenue, peruse the endless selection of engaging titles at McNally Robinson, and finish off with a holiday blockbuster at the Empire 8.
If it’s a clear night and not too cold, enjoy a little star gazing behind Grant Park High. Listen for the train-whistle and think of Rooster Town.
VELOCITYWG is a weekly design project: simple exercises in unfettered creativity with a common theme that’s near and dear to our hearts: celebrating the streets, suburbs, and cityscape of Manitoba’s capital.
VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues next week.
Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com
VELOCITYWG #9 — “Wildwood”
East of Pembina Highway and south of Lord Roberts and Riverview, Wildwood fits snugly in a heavily treed oxbow of the Red River. Initially settled by William Pearson in the early 1900s, the area is best known for the Wildwood Park subdivision — one of only two Winnipeg neighbourhoods built on the Radburn system of residential super-blocks.
VELOCITYWG #9 is “Wildwood” by Senior Designer, Colette Boisvert
Wildwood Park was developed in the 40s by Hubert Bird, and designed by Winnipeg’s famous Green Blankstein Russell (the firm behind the Winnipeg International Airport, City Hall, the Centennial Concert Hall, Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, and others). Like West Norwood, houses in Wildwood Park have no front street, only a sidewalk and a back lane, giving the area an unusual and wonderfully park-like feel.
Perched on Wildwood’s southernmost point is St. John’s-Ravenscourt School, a prestigious university prep-school for girls and boys. Founded as the Red River Mission School in 1820, the school has undergone considerable changes in its near-two century history (Ravenscourt was once located in Armstrong’s Point). The school is an anchoring landmark in the area, and its fine, wooded grounds and secluded castle-quality make it the closest thing Winnipeg has to Hogwart’s.
From Pembina, (thermos of hot cocoa firmly in hand) take Riverwood or Waterford Avenue up to the Viscount Alexander School on Point Road. Stroll up North Drive around the scenic Wildwood Golf Course and down again to SJR (Wave to any local Muggles you might encounter). From South Drive, cut up through the middle of Wildwood Park, marvel at the sheer number of trees and picturesque homes, and then cross up and over to Manchester Boulevard.
Wonder why more neighbourhoods aren’t built on the Radburn model.
Repeat as necessary.
VELOCITYWG is a weekly design project: simple exercises in unfettered creativity with a common theme that’s near and dear to our hearts: celebrating the streets, suburbs, and cityscape of Manitoba’s capital.
VELOCITYWG, Rebranding One Great City, continues next week.
Comments? jay@velocitybranding.com
