TORONTO – If you want people to watch your new fall programming slate, make sure they’re home, says Showcase. Even if you have to drive them there.
Showcase hits the streets on Monday with the largest multimedia marketing campaign in its history – including outdoor, print, on-air executions and guerilla tactics – to promote the fall launch of its premium television line-up nightly at 10 p.m. The campaign promotes acclaimed, premium programs seen exclusively on Alliance Atlantis-owned Showcase in Canada including The L Word, Weeds, Rescue Me, The Grid and Webdreams – and will also support Showcase’s cable television premieres: Dead Like Me and Six Feet Under. 
The neat-o part of the campaign is that to ensure viewers are home in time to catch the shows, the network is sending a fleet of Showcase-branded taxis onto the streets of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal beginning the week of September 6.
The taxis will drive people home, no-charge, between the hours of 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., and will be outfitted with television monitors inside the cabs which will feature ads promoting the 10 p.m. line-up. Mobile taxi stands will enable the cabs to pick up riders from different areas of the three cities. The promotion will run for three nights a week for six weeks. Taxis will also hit the streets during the day to serve as mobile billboards.
“We’re very excited about our 10 p.m. line-up of truly fantastic programming airing this fall on Showcase. All of these acclaimed series push the boundaries of television in different ways and are a perfect fit for our network,” said John Gill, senior vice-president of programming for the dramatic networks at Alliance Atlantis Communications, in a release.
“Our fall campaign celebrates the quality and innovative nature of our programming and was developed to encourage viewers to make a nightly appointment with Showcase at 10 p.m.,” added Muriel Solomon, director of marketing.
Five programs each have their own print executions that are linked with a tagline featuring three descriptors relating to the show, followed by the word “Wow.”
For The L Word, a photo of the main characters is accompanied by the line “Girls. Friends. Girlfriends. Wow.” For Weeds, a photo of series star Mary-Louise Parker is complemented with the tagline “Widow. Mother. Dealer. Wow.” Print ads will appear in six cities – Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax – in commuter papers, urban weeklies, magazines, online web sites and in film festival schedule guides for the Vancouver, Toronto and Atlantic festivals.
A dozen on-air promos have been running heavily on Showcase and other Alliance Atlantis channels since early August. The 10 p.m. image spots depict the “water cooler” effect that the channel’s 10 p.m. line-up will have on viewers as they gather to discuss and react to the storylines. Each series has its own 30-second promo; spots are punctuated with cast members from the programs saying “wow” in a tongue-in-cheek way of endorsing their own show. The promos will also air in Famous Players theatres in Toronto and Vancouver throughout September and on Air Canada flights.
Additional promotional highlights include:
• Subway domination: All media surfaces in the subway station at Yonge and Bloor in downtown Toronto will be used to promote the fall line-up, including floor decals, platform posters, stickers on stairs, ticket booths, and turnstiles wrapped in advertising. This promotion kicks off on August 29th and runs for a month.
• Beachfest in Toronto: As a primary sponsor of one of Canada’s largest free outdoor concerts, Showcase will gain on-site exposure and will run a contest offering to drive families home after the Labour Day event in network-branded vehicles. The event attracts a crowd of approximately 100,0
00 people each year.
• Esso Stations: Video screens at Esso fuel pumps will feature 30-second promos supporting the Fall launch.
• Elevator spots: Television screens in the elevators of office building towers in downtown Toronto and Vancouver will run 15-second spots promoting Showcase’s Fall campaign
Thirty-second radio spots will run in six markets – Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal, Kitchener and London – beginning August 29 for 3 weeks.
Showcase online (www.Showcase.ca) celebrates the arrival of the Fall launch by featuring microsites for Rescue Me (Season Two), The L Word (Season Two), Six Feet Under (Seasons Three and Four), and Weeds. A special 10 p.m. web page has also been developed to highlight the best of boundary-pushing television coming to Showcase this Fall. The microsites offer viewers an informative and interactive destination on the web by way of cast and character bios, episodic synopses, program imagery and other special features, says the release.
The campaign was jointly developed by Alliance Atlantis and FCB Canada. The taxi promotion is being executed by Gearwerx Experiential Marketing.
