Agency/Media Company: Starcom Worldwide

Client: Minute Maid Company of Canada

Team: Chris Morandin, media director; Stephanie Guran, planning supervisor; Rishma Dewsi, buying supervisor

Timing: January to December 1999

Best Use of Newspaper

The Background

The goal was to position Minute Maid orange juice to consumers as a brand that allows them to make the most of the day ahead – a very relevant positioning, as over 73% of all orange juice is consumed during the morning daypart.

With adult consumers as the key target, the media team set about constructing a plan that would not only deliver ‘morning ownership,’ but would also reflect the hurried way that adults bustle through the early part of each day.

The Plan

The strategy focused on certain key areas:

Morning television: The media team leveraged 52-week sponsorships of breakfast programs on Global in Montreal, CIVT in Vancouver and ASN in Atlantic Canada. The sponsorships included product placement during interviews and editorial coverage, opening and closing billboards and brand-sell spots, plus a ‘Minute Maid monitor’ on the Vancouver show.

Morning newspaper: Minute Maid had continuous insertions on the front page of the National Post for its calcium-fortified product – a placement that gave the brand additional exposure through newspaper boxes. In this way, the newspaper campaign reached both readers and busy adults in the street on their way to work in the morning.

The Results

Minute Maid continues to build a morning ownership presence, with strong results. In addition to increasing target awareness, the brand has captured the number one position in the calcium-fortified orange juice segment, with a 60%-plus share of market. The client continues to invest in this strategy and expand the program.

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* Chapters stands out in dot-com crowd: Multimedia approach helped retailer create perception of market and category dominance p.BMP15

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* The Judges p.BMP43

Google Canada and agency Church + State have produced a new spot informed by research from the search giant that suggests it is a primary connector for Canadians to the news that matters to them – a direct shot across the bow of the legislators presently considering Bill C-18.

In a spot titled “Connecting you to all that’s news,” the search giant harnesses archival footage reflective of many of the issues Canadians care about deeply, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, truth and reconciliation and the war in Ukraine, to demonstrate the point that many Canadians turn to Google as a gateway to the information and news they’re seeking.

“From St. John’s to Victoria and everywhere in between, when Canadians want to understand or get updated on the most pressing topics, Google connects them to the news sources that provide it,” says Laura Pearce, head of marketing for Google Canada. “All of us at Google are proud to be that consistent and reliable connection for Canadians to the news they’re searching for.”

In some ways, the goal of the campaign was to tap into the varied emotional responses that single news stories can have with different audiences across the country.

“News may be factual, but how people respond to it can be very emotional,” explains Ron Tite, founder and CCO at Church + State. “Importantly, those emotions aren’t universal. One news story can create completely different reactions from different people in different places. Because of that, we simply wanted to let connecting to news be the focus of this campaign. We worked diligently to license a wide variety of actual news footage that we felt would resonate with Canadians.”

The campaign can be seen as a statement by the search provider on Bill C-18 – the Online News Act – that is currently being deliberated by a parliamentary committee. That legislation seeks to force online platforms such as Meta’s Facebook and Alphabet’s Google to pay news publishers for their content, echoing a similar law passed in Australia in 2021. The Act has drawn sharp rebukes from both companies, with Facebook threatening to ban news sharing on its platform.

Google Canada is not commenting on whether this new campaign is a response to C-18, but it has been public in its criticism of the legislation. In testimony delivered to parliament and shared on its blog, Colin McKay, the company’s head of public policy and government relations, said, “This is a history-making opportunity for Canada to craft world-class legislation that is clear and principled on who it benefits.” However, he noted that C-18 is “not that legislation.”

The campaign launched on Oct. 24 and is running through December across cinema, OLV, OOH, podcast, digital and social. Airfoil handled the broadcast production.