Like clockwork, the flip of the calendar from August to September has launched us headlong into the fall planning cycle and a number of projects that will, hopefully, end up as full-fledged campaigns in the not so distant future.
While we’re currently working on a number of different files for clients in all sectors, I’d like to highlight a few of the ones that allow us to showcase the functionality of some of the tools that we’ve been developing over the last couple of years.

All Provinces – Napa Auto Stores

We were contacted by one of our larger agency clients recently to assist in planning for a campaign for their client, the Napa chain of automotive parts stores across Canada.  They were directed by their client to identify community newspaper options circulating within the 10km trade footprint around each of their stores - all 649 of them.  In order for this campaign to be planned further the agency needed to overcome this rather large challenge that manifested very early in the process.

Using the raw Excel document that listed each Napa store by address and postal code, we were able to geo-target all AdWest community newspapers to stores according to the agency’s planning objectives.

Recognizing the agency (based out of Montreal) would likely require and additional perspective on the data, we also included a series of maps like the one below to support our recommendations.

Alberta – Alberta Health Services

Via the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, the agency responsible for planning the Alberta Health Services account approached us for a breakdown of community newspaper circulation by applicable health zones.  The campaign they were working on is zone specific and it is of paramount importance that each publication run the material pertinent to the zone(s) they circulate into.  Material will be developed to accommodate the many different scenarios that could ultimately take place.

In this case, the challenge for the agency was to identify where the potential landmine of publications circulating into multiple health zones occurred, prior to launch.

Again, using our geo-targeting infrastructure, we were able to physically link each AWNA member publication according to the amount of circulation within each applicable health district.  The data was then provided back to the agency in both tabular and map form so that their planning activities could evolve to the next stage.

Saskatchewan – SK Ministry of Agriculture

The agency responsible for planning this key provincial government department is headquartered out of Calgary, AB.  However, the media department is managed out of St. Louis, Missouri.  To establish a Canadian presence on their planning team, the agency recently hired a planner to work out of the Calgary office.  That planner was brought in from Halifax, NS.

What’s the moral of the story?  Always assume that the people responsible for managing advertising budgets have never set foot in your circulation area because chances are good, that’s the case.

Planning activities for this account are in support of what will hopefully be a campaign promoting October as agriculture month in Saskatchewan.  The agency was pitched on four campaign options based on their pre-determined 1/4p material run 1X in all members.  It has since been determined that the cheapest of the proposed options ($24,000) exceeds their budget and to quote the planner, ‘We need to shave some budget on the weeklies’ for this campaign to get approval.

In the back and forth that has taken place this week it was determined that the agency will use a combination of physical coverage and readership analysis as well as a review of Special Supplement Opportunities to finalize their recommendation to the client. 

Once again, this underscores how agencies are looking for ‘innovative’ ways to use our media and demonstrates why our approach to marketing it needs to be in lockstep.

Manitoba – Manitoba Government Employees Union (MGEU)

The agency responsible for planning the MGEU account is based out of North Vancouver, BC.  They approached us about providing assistance on a plan being considered for community newspapers with less than a couple hours turnaround.

The campaign itself was in support of union meetings for the Tech Professional Paramedical workers taking place in small rural communities throughout Manitoba.  Most of them were unfamiliar to the agency.

The agency provided us with a list of the target communities and asked for a recommendation of titles best suited to the campaigns objectives.

We were able to use our newly unveiled online iMapper application to construct a map that helped to visualize support for our recommendation and the campaign launched the next week.