[ Air Canada Olympic ads take off ]
August 08, 2008 | By Brian Dunn
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Like a number of official Canadian Olympic sponsors, Air Canada launched a new advertising campaign on CBC and Radio Canada for the opening of the Beijing Games this morning.
The airline will run three different spots during the Summer Olympics and the Paralympic Games in September.
“Air Canada flew the athletes to the games in Beijing for free, so we’re playing an integral role at the Olympics,” said Nathan O’Brien, co-creative director at the airline’s agency Marketel, which shot the ads in May with Air Canada employees from across the country.
“A lot of advertisers co-opt the spirit of the Olympics and talk about their achievements,” said O’Brien.
Marketel and Air Canada took a different approach by focusing on the everyday contributions of the airline staff in getting Canadian athletes to Beijing, explained O’Brien, who replaced David Yost on the Air Canada account after Yost returned to the United States earlier this summer. The executions feature behind-the-scenes employees like baggage handlers, mechanics and gate agents—in addition to pilots and flight attendants—with narrators explaining how they aren’t doing their job for glory, but how proud they are to be taking “our athletes” to the Games.
“We didn’t want talking heads. We wanted to observe people as they go about doing their job,” added Stephen Davis, vice-president, client services on the Air Canada account.
“And the Olympic buy is unique because there are a lot of impressions over a short period of time. Between the CBC and Radio-Canada, we expect to reach 90% of Canadians.” The three ads will be shown around 700 times combined on the two networks during the Olympics, said Denis Vandal, director of marketing communications and brand manager at Air Canada. The ads will also be seen online at CBC.ca and Radio-Canada.ca.
“We decided to focus on our employees because they’re proud of their roles and those of the athletes,” said Vandal. “We wanted to put the spotlight on them.”
The last time Air Canada advertised on television was in spring 2007.
“We use TV on a needs related business for strategic objectives,” said Davis. “We used it last spring to introduce Air Canada’s different products and services and new fare structure.”
Marketel also handled the media buy.
