In this edition of our Innovative Advertising blog, Sandy MacLeod, vice-president of consumer marketing and strategy for Toronto Star, shares the inside story behind the paper’s award-winning print advertising campaign for History Television.
“Innovation is the name of the game these days – selling space rather than solutions is a thing of the past. As such, the Toronto Star strives to work with advertisers to provide relevant solutions for their marketing challenges. When Shaw Communications, which owns the History Television in Canada, approached us looking for a unique opportunity to promote its Kennedy miniseries, we were happy to assist. Our creative director Lorne Silver produced an innovative solution that not only pleased Shaw, but also offered something unique to our readers.
While we half cover (i.e. gatefold) the front page of the newspaper for many of our advertisers, we found an innovative way to do this for the Kennedy series. We had a number of historical news articles from 1961 highlighting the Kennedys in our editorial archives. We proposed placing these historical articles on the gatefold and back cover. This would catch readers attention and draw them into the ads placed on the inside front and back cover.
Click here to view the finished product »
Imagine the response from readers when they picked up their morning newspaper to find out that Kennedy had been assassinated!
This impactful piece ran and Shaw was thrilled with both the program and the results! The television audience for the series was exceptional!
Finally, as further kudos, this execution won an Extra Award for outstanding newspaper advertising!”
