It’s a funny thing about kids. They’ll ignore advice about nutrition from parents, teachers and doctors, just on general principles. But if that same advice comes from three tv personalities in bad wigs and dorky silver jumpsuits – hey, they’re all ears.
So Dairy Farmers of Ontario (dfo) discovered when they partnered with provincial public broadcaster TVOntario earlier this year on the production of a series of healthy eating vignettes entitled ‘The Bod Squad.’
These short segments, starring the hosts of tvo’s popular children’s programming blocks, were scheduled to run for just six weeks during the winter. But they proved so popular with young viewers that they’re still on the air – and a new series is now in the works.
‘We just assumed we’d do this once, and then dump the characters,’ says Kevin McKaye, manager of underwriting for tvo. ‘But it seemed to take on a life of its own. I saw my own kids run to the tv every time they heard the Bod Squad music start.’
The Bod Squad project is, arguably, the most successful outgrowth to date of the three-year relationship between Dairy Farmers of Ontario and tvo – a relationship that has added a valuable dimension to dfo’s other, more traditional activities in television.
Dairy Farmers of Ontario is a marketing body representing approximately 7,500 dairy farms across the province. Advertising for the Mississauga, Ont.-based organization is produced by Watt Burt Advertising of Montreal. McKim Media Group in Toronto handles media planning and buying.
Roberta Jessup-Ramsay, advertising manager for dfo, says that television has traditionally been their primary medium, with outdoor running second.
‘We have a very broad target group,’ she explains. ‘Everyone drinks milk – there’s nothing niche about it. So television is the most efficient way to get the message out there.’ As a visual medium, she adds, it also provides a good opportunity to emphasize appetite appeal in the creative.
With a primary target of adults 18-34, dfo tends to buy a lot of high-profile prime-time properties – from Seinfeld and The X-Files in seasons past, to Dawson’s Creek, Party of Five and Melrose Place this year.
Aileen Grant, vice-president, group media director for McKim, says that, as a client, dfo has generally been quite open to ideas for making more creative use of traditional media.
Last year, for example, the organization launched its ‘Drink Milk. Love Life’ campaign with a major promotional program built around Baton Broadcasting System’s airing of the Grammy Awards.
‘We’re always on the lookout for new ideas,’ Grant says.
It was TVOntario that initially came forward with the proposal of a partnership with dfo. As McKaye points out, the current provincial government has made clear that it expects tvo to pursue more relationships with the private sector, without compromising its essentially non-commercial mandate. And Dairy Farmers seemed the right sort of match.
From the outset, Jessup-Ramsay saw it exactly the same way.
‘We obviously have an advertising mandate,’ she says. ‘But we also have a long-standing nutrition education program – we work with schools in helping train teachers to teach about nutrition. And tvo, of course, has an educational mandate. So we said, ‘There’s got to be a fit here.”
The partnership began modestly, with a series of jointly developed segments intended to promote healthier snacking habits for kids. For the last three years, dfo’s Milk Energy program has also been presenting sponsor of the annual TVOntario open house in September – an event, now held at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre, that attracts more than 70,000 adults and children in a single day.
While tvo does not provide commercial airtime, McKaye says it can offer the milk marketing agency a vehicle for positioning and awareness-building.
‘We’ll never replace the money that they’re spending with commercial broadcasters,’ he says. ‘And we’re not trying to. But what we can do is reinforce, in a very creative way, what they’re doing with those broadcasters.’
The Bod Squad initiative grew out of dfo’s desire to take advantage of what has been one of TVOntario’s major successes: its children’s programming. (Among kids 2-11, tvo currently outranks any other broadcaster – including ytv and Teletoon – in the 3:30-7 p.m. weekday time period.)
Part of that success can be ascribed to the popularity of the on-air personalities known as the TVO Kids: Joe Motiki and Patty Sullivan, hosts of station’s weekday children’s block, and Rekha Shah, host of the Sunday morning block.
The TVO Kids star in the eight Bod Squad vignettes, which were videotaped in school cafeterias and grocery stores. Clad in wigs and jumpsuits, the trio bust a move to cheesy ’70s-style funk (think Shaft-meets-Sesame-Street) and dispense advice about healthy eating.
The vignettes, all 45 to 90 seconds in length, began airing in February. Plans are now in the works to develop 16 more, for a 52-week run.
Grant says the broadcaster worked closely with nutritionists from dfo to develop the content of the vignettes, which cover all of the major food groups rather than focusing on milk and other dairy products exclusively.
‘Milk has a very low-key role in the production,’ affirms McKaye, who explains that a more overt attempt to push dairy products would have been out of place in the tvo environment.
So far anyway, the DFO-TVOntario partnership has earned favorable reviews from both sides. In fact, McKaye says, it has provided something of a template for tvo’s recently announced sponsorship arrangement with Royal Bank of Canada.
Later this fall, the broadcaster will begin airing educational vignettes, developed in collaboration with Royal Bank, during the after-school programming block. These segments will focus on banking basics, but will not promote Royal and its services explicitly.
As for dfo, new plans are also afoot for fall. In addition to helping develop new Bod Squad segments, the organization has cut a deal with tvo for Real Cream to sponsor the hugely popular British cooking show Two Fat Ladies.
Grant says the relationship between dfo and TVOntario will continue to evolve. But since much of this territory is still new to the public broadcaster, the process will necessarily be a gradual one.
‘They’re not a commercial station, so we can only move in baby steps,’ she says. ‘But we’re constantly trying to push the envelope a little bit.’
Also in this special report:
* Seeking value in a complex world: There might be no such thing as a simple plan any more, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an effective one, say the experts p.B2
* Fall launches a platform for promotional activities: New season a critical time for broadcasters to leverage excitement around their schedules p.B8
* Spotlight onÉ Television Creative p.B18
