After three years, David Wilkinson has given up the Event Marketing column to pursue opportunities outside Canada. Taking over from him is Michael Lang of Lang & Associates.

Michael Lang is president of Lang & Associates, a Toronto-based international event marketing agency with offices in Vancouver, Montreal and Atlanta.

Jennifer Scace is an associate with Lang & Associates, and co-ordinator for the Event Marketing column. Contributions, ideas, media releases and feedback should be directed to Jennifer at (416) 229-0060, or fax (416) 229-1210.

Edmonton will play host, Jan. 12-16, to the Royal Bank Canadian Figure Skating Championships.

Skaters such as Kurt Browning, Marcus Christensen, Elvis Stojko, Josee Chouinard, Karen Preston, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler will be vying for a spot on the Canadian team, and a chance to compete at the 1994 Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer, Norway in February.

Royal Bank has been title sponsor of Canada’s National Figure Skating Championships since 1989, and is one of a long list of sponsors including American Safety Razor (asr), Bull Worldwide Information Systems, Nestle Enterprises, Petro Canada, Vaseline Intensive Care Lotion, Canadian Airlines International, American Express Travel Service, CTV Television Network, diet Coke, Wittnauer Watch, Sun Life Assurance of Canada, Lederie Consumer Health Products and Canada Post.

Figure skating has a strong family orientation, with the majority of figure skating enthusiasts having an above-average household income and a high percentage having a university degree.

Demographics also indicate that although the main target audience is female (79%), the male audience numbers are increasing.

In fact, figure skating tv audience numbers appear to be growing on all networks and for both professional and amateur tv properties.

For example, overall audience numbers increased 27% for the Royal Bank Canadian Figure Skating Championships from 1992-93, and 21% for the World Championships in those same years.

Similarly, audience numbers for SunLife Skate Canada International 1993 increased 59.5% overall from 1992.

Leveraging sponsorships

Royal Bank has been a long-time supporter of Canadian figure skating as sponsor of the cfsa, the national team and Canadian championships.

As title sponsor of the Royal Bank Canadian Figure Skating Championships (cfsa), Royal Bank leverages its sponsorship through various promotional initiatives, highlights of which include: a Visa Gold ‘Gold Section’ promotion providing cardholders with an advance seating opportunity; an in-branch awareness campaign; three days of autograph sessions during the event featuring Olympic champions, and an employee ‘kick-off’ skating party with members of the Canadian National Team.

For more information, contact Patricia Straker at (416) 974-3386.

Lederlie promotes Centrum

Lederlie Consumer Health Products has been promoting its Centrum line of vitamins for eight years through its CFSA/ National Team sponsorship, and has used figure skating events such as ‘The Canadians’ to promote its product line through: drugstore promotions which encourage in-store display and are tied to a consumer draw for tickets to the event; a ‘Centrum Junior Skate with the Stars’ promotion targetting the Centrum Junior brand and promoted in all cfsa clubs to children aged four to 12 offering a chance for the winner and his or her family to be flown to the event to skate in the Parade of Champions at the end of the competition, and a community hospital visit in which skaters bring the flowers thrown by spectators during the event to a local hospital and sign autographs for patients.

For more information, contact Jim McCullough at (416) 470-3643.

Sun Life extends itself

Also a sponsor of the cfsa and Canadian National Team, Sun Life Assurance of Canada continues to build on its six-year association with figure skating by extending its involvement from grassroots programs such as SunLife Skate Canada International and SunLife Sectionals through to the elite level of professional figure skating with properties such as SunLife Stars on Ice.

These sponsorships provide the agents of Sun Life as well as the representatives from the other business units of Sun Life companies with many opportunities to build valuable business relationships.

For more information, contact Gail Jaques Jarvis at (416) 408-7525.

Skate guide

Canada Post, in conjunction with the cfsa, produces an ‘Event Media Guide’ for SunLife Skate Canada International and the Royal Bank Canadian Championships, which is distributed to homes in the event region (e.g. 300,000 homes in the Edmonton region for ‘Canadians.’)

For more information, contact Pierre Yves Villeneuve at (613) 734-6686.