Creative way to advertise for the new Leafs season

Media in Canada posted an interesting article about Smirnoff's advertising initiative to celebrate the 2008 Toronto Maple Leaf's home opener. Smirnoff placed a six-storey billboard in Yonge-Dundas square in downtown Toronto. Suspended from the billboard were two stuntmen dressed in Maple Leafs gear pretending to play hockey suspended hundreds of feet in the air.

A video of the ad can be seen here:


From an agency perspective, this shows how media and creative were able to work together to create a very successful ad that provided a long lasting impression even though the ad lasted for only a day. it also had an impact on the media company, as they had to be innovative and use creativity to add a new element to an old advertising medium.

This also impacts me because It has shown me how agencies can be innovative, adding a creative element to a traditional medium, and generating a lot of hype and awareness in the process.

Audi's 'Bright Idea'

I came across another article online at the MarketingMag website that discusses Audi's new idea for promoting the A4.

Audi is releasing a new campaign aimed at accentuating the LED fuel-saving running lights in the new A4. The Ad's come in the form of large wall boards in the parking garages of upper-scale office buildings in major Canadian cities.



The boards contain material that causes the lights to reflect when car's headlights hit the sign. The primary goal of the ad's are to get people excited about the A4 - a car that has a lot of competition in its class.

The campaign is complemented with print, TV, and online advertisements, but the parking garage boards are the bread and butter.

The innovative boards show how a particular audience can be targeted. In this case, Audi is targeting business personnel that work in upper-scale office towers. They also show how products such as cars, which typically have fairly standard ads that are not very different from product to product, can be advertised in an innovative way.

These ads will affect the agency, as it will require advertisers to become more creative and innovative to keep up with the competition in the industry. They will also affect the consumers, because if the campaign is a success, it will potentially affect their buying habits.

The NHL... 'Is It This Year?'

I came across an article outlining the new advertising campaign that the National Hockey League has put into place to promote the '08/09 season. the article was found at MarketingMag.ca and was titled "NHL Brings Big Shots to Life."

The article outlines the new campaign, which contain four of the leagues bright young stars, talking to the audience about their past experiences in the league, and pondering the question "is it this year?". The Ad's start with static images, with the player in question turning towards the camera while the rest of the image remains static. The players describe the setting that they are standing in, and talk about the emotional impact it has on them.

this is the first commercial of the series


This article will potentially impact the way agencies market sports and sporting events. It is a new way of attacking sport advertising on TV and depending on the success of the campaign, it will provide sports advertisers with a new insight into advertising. There is also a potential affect on consumers, as they may be able to relate to the advertisements much more than typical sports pieces because there is an emotional aspect that give the athletes a much larger sense of person.

The article has a potential impact on myself as it gives me more of a perspective on advertising potential. It shows how with a little creativity and research, a typical bland teaser advertisement can be transformed into something that really strikes a chord with its target audience.