GOLD

Client: Bell Canada, Montreal

Campaign: Bell Sympatico Olympiques

Agency: Blitz

Creative Directors: Patrick Beauduin, Marc Fortin

Copywriters: Patrick Beauduin and Brigitte Ledermann

Art Directors: Sylvain Allaire and Samantha Hull

Agency Producer (broadcast): Julie Lapré

This past February, with Internet penetration in Quebec having reached that of the rest of Canada, Bell Canada set out to quash its competition – most notably Videotron – by changing the perception that cable Internet is faster than phone.

Bell chose the Winter Olympics to launch an integrated mass campaign supporting its Bell Sympatico High Speed Edition service (both alone and as part of a long-distance bundle).

TV and DM were targeted specifically at Quebec families with children aged seven to 17 with a high potential for subscribing to high-speed Internet service, and residing in areas where the service is available.

Creatively, each execution leveraged the strong awareness and fondness of Bell’s spokesperson, Monsieur B, and also introduced a new character, the skater, who devotes himself to sports that are faster than figure skating, in an effort to visually demonstrate high speed.

Bell hoped to match or exceed the response rates of preceding direct marketing campaigns by employing various personalized direct mailers. The initial DM pieces touted the benefits of high speed, and of the limited time offer (entire centre panel spread), and emulated the supporting media which featured the lead skater character. A 30-second awareness TV spot and 60-second DRTV spot were also launched in support of the campaign.

DM conversion rates surpassed objectives with an average of 118%, with more than 82% conversion in certain segments.

SILVER

McDonnell Haynes Advertising, Toronto, for its ‘New Business Prospecting’ program, created in-house

MERIT

Nissan Canada, Mississauga, Ont., for the ’2002 Nissan Altima Launch’ campaign, developed by TBWAChiatDay, Toronto