Without a doubt, Microsoft’s Tablet PC is a revolutionary new product. It’s the first laptop that allows users to scribble or draw onto a screen and then reformat the results into text, file them for future reference, or even e-mail them.
That’s why an ad team at the National Post decided to come up with a rather revolutionary scheme of its own and pitch it to Microsoft. It is a way to depict the Tablet seemingly in action while big news is actually breaking – which, for print, is pretty astonishing.
‘What we offered them was the opportunity to showcase their product being used by our newspaper and TV personalities,’ says Toronto-based Rosanne Caron, VP of Integrated Business Solutions for CanWest Media Sales.
So, bright and early the morning after last month’s Super Bowl, the first of six such ads startled National Post readers – at least those who know anything about newspaper production deadlines. In a plum page-one ad spot was a photo of the Tablet with the scrawled teaser: ‘There’s more than sports in today’s sports section.’
Sure enough, the Sports section had a double-spread ad showing an actual-sized Tablet with a handwritten on-screen note from Jim Tatti, sports director at Global TV Sports. The kicker? Even though the Super Bowl didn’t finish until about 10:30 the previous night – long after any daily’s ad deadline – Tatti’s note announced the results of the big game: ‘Tampa Over Oakland.’
How did the Post pull off such an eye-catching coup? Actually, Caron admits, there was no whirling dervish act at all. Tatti’s note was just an educated guess that luckily turned out to be right. The ad was in fact prepared on a conventional time line.
Even so, the ingenious advertising stunt effectively highlighted what the Tablet is all about, says Mike Bulmer, senior communication manager at Microsoft Canada’s Toronto office. ‘That ad, and five more like it that will appear in the Post, was essentially meant to demonstrate that the Tablet is mobile, it’s versatile and it’s a very powerful new evolution of the notebook computer.’
The second Tablet ad, which appeared the morning after the Feb. 2 NHL All-Star Game, also depicted a note from Tatti.
Others in the Post series will feature: entertainment writer Shinan Govani’s notes about Oscar nominations in the Entertainment section; Peter Kent, deputy producer/executive producer of Global News, whose ad will feature his handwritten edits on a press release in the A section; investment writer Deirdre McMurdy on RRSPs in the Financial section; plus one other yet-to-be-determined Post personality. All these ads will be teased on page one.
Bulmer says the National Post’s campaign was chosen by both Microsoft’s creative agency, MacLaren McCann, and its media buyer, M2 Universal, not only because of the attention-pulling power of using high-profile journalists, but because ‘showing them actually using the Tablet really speaks to our key target audiences, which are what we call ‘corridor warriors’ [fast-paced business executives] and ‘road warriors’ [frequent travellers].’
