There has been no shortage of pundits ready to state that Canadian advertising is on its deathbed. Yet, like the reported death of Mark Twain, such rumours are greatly exaggerated. Canadian advertising is alive, kicking and vibrant. Just look at the CASSIES awards.
The awards are presented to agencies and clients that provide evidence that their campaign was effective. Entrants submit a case study giving details of the background to the campaign, the insights developed, the strategy, the campaign itself and the results. In addition to the overall winner, there are awards in such categories as “Sustained Success”, “Best Insight” and so on, as well as industry-specific awards.
I should hasten to comment that the evidence of effectiveness is never conclusive. This is the real world, where conditions are constantly shifting, measurement is poor, consumers’ motivations are obscure, competitors are trying to interfere. At best, an award-winning campaign will show some market share and sales improvement and some attitudinal shifts. These could have been caused by many things, but the authors try to exclude causes other than advertising, and some do this quite well. But the evidence is often ambiguous – as is all purported evidence of advertising’s effectiveness.
The lack of hard evidence aside, the cleverness of some of these campaigns is astounding. Witness Algoma University’s delightful campaign that turned its key disadvantage – how far it is from anywhere – into a plus, with a campaign for prospective students that asked them to “Put 681 km between you and ‘You’re not going out in that!’” and “Put 681 km between you and ‘You better be in by ten, mister!’”. When you think of the target market, it’s a fresh, original idea and brings Algoma U closer to teens’ hearts, if not to their homes.
Or the Grand Prix winner, Hellman’s Real Food Movement, a campaign that supported the idea of local food through community gardens and involved partnerships with both media organizations and nonprofit groups, celebrity chef endorsements and the use of traditional and digital media. The campaign was remarkable for its combination of grass-roots and top-down marketing, and for the authenticity it gave the brand – reminiscent of another legendary CASSIES winner from the past, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.
These are just two of many fascinating campaigns from this year’s CASSIES, and I urge you to go to the website, www.cassies.ca, where there is a comprehensive library of past winners, complete with videos and pictures of the creative work.
The explosion of new digital media was supposed to have been a threat to the industry: it would become more difficult to reach consumers, to control the brand message, to break through clutter and overcome skepticism. But the world seems to be unfolding differently. Canadian advertisers now have a much broader canvas to paint on, and are realizing that marketing communications mean not just cute ads but a multifaceted exchange with their consumers. Consumers are no longer just passive recipients of messages: they can give as good as they get, and smart marketers like the CASSIES winners are learning to engage in authentic conversations with them.
Some deathbed. Instead of being moribund, Canadian advertising is finding new life by shifting the meaning of advertising itself. Hats off to the CASSIES winners.
