Greg and Kim used to live smack-dab in the middle of downtown Toronto. But after the birth of their son last year, they decided it was time to move on to the quiet, quaint neighbourhood of Bloor West Village.

Nonetheless, they cling to remnants of their old urban lives – by practising the latest fitness craze, reading up on the new hot spots in Toronto Life, and then checking them out on weekends when their parents are available to babysit. They also take transit downtown for work; Greg is an account director and Kim is a freelance graphic designer.

These are precisely the consumers that Toronto 1 hopes to reach with its two-pronged launch campaign, which debuted with teasers on Sept. 8 and follows up with show-specific tune-in messages when the station goes live.

After a brand context study conducted by its internal research team in collaboration with Toronto-based agency Flavour, the new channel was able to define this psychographic profile, and specifically the icons Greg and Kim, which in turn determines, ‘how you’re going to appear on-air, how you’re going to communicate, the language you’ll use to define yourself, your brand positioning, your brand character, and your brand essence,’ explains Jim Johnson, Toronto 1’s director of marketing.

‘As we got deeper into the psychographic profile, we got an understanding of who these people are.’

But before it got to Greg and Kim, Toronto 1, which hits the airwaves Sept. 19 at 7 p.m. on Rogers 15 (formerly NBC’s channel), had to find a demographic that was underserved in a competitive television market.

Citytv had a strong relationship with youth and CFTO had the higher end of the 25-to-54 demographic covered, but the station found that those viewers in between the two age groups were being neglected, and figured that a bull’s eye target of 33-to-37-year-olds was a good bet.

Explains Johnson: ‘These are people who have probably outgrown Citytv a bit, people who aren’t going to watch Electric Circus every Friday night. They are people who aren’t quite at the CFTO level as well.’

The advertising aims to resonate with this audience, that is ‘white knuckling onto the notion that they’re still hip and cool,’ as Johnson puts it. The teaser ads are simple and minimal, with what appears to be a blue wash over the photography evoking a ‘modern feel.’ There are three executions in the pre-launch campaign – ‘ferry,’ ‘bus’ and ‘Casa Loma,’ three subjects well known to Toronto citizens.

In each ad, a character holds a TV in an unlikely location, the cord snaking off to an unknown outlet. The tagline is ‘stay tuned,’ and the ads flag when and where the station goes live.

‘The first prong is basically to position ourselves and gives us the opportunity to talk about the fact that a new TV channel is launching in the city,’ says Johnson. ‘The tagline also implies that something is going to happen. I also like the fact that it can work against saying ‘stay tapped in’ and literally, through our current affairs and original programming, we have the opportunity to be that type of connection to the city.’

The brand context study also determined that transit provided an ideal medium for reaching those in the target, so it is a ‘main staple’ of the media plan, developed by Toronto-based media agency PHD Canada. The ads in the year-long campaign appear on transit shelters, subway, streetcar and bus interiors, as well as 250 boards throughout the city, for a total of 75 GRPs. Toronto 1 will also dominate 20 subway cars and GO commuter stations as well.

As close to the broadcast deadline as possible, all the advertising will flip over to support five main properties: the station’s flagship current affairs program Toronto Tonight; the entertainment/variety showcase The Toronto Show; The Sharon Osbourne Show; the gossipy Celebrity Justice and Extra; and ‘prime ticket’ movies. The ads are also running in magazines like Toronto Life, Inside Entertainment and Tribute.

Each instalment features a personality from the respective program, along with a witty headline. For instance, an ad for The Sharon Osbourne Show says: ‘Hear an Osbourne talk for 60 minutes without saying censored, censored or censored,’ while a piece for The Toronto Show quips: ‘Just like the Ed Sullivan Show except our hosts aren’t dead.’

Explains Johnson: ‘We really wanted to be lighthearted, irreverent and funny. We [couldn’t] come out seriously and say: ‘We are the number-one source for news programming’ because we were just launching.’

Where it made sense, the creative minds at Flavour also tried to link the advertising back to the GTA through inside jokes. For instance, one of the ads for Toronto Tonight states: ‘Covering the city like minivans cover Mississauga,’ while another kids: ‘Covering the city like speedbumps cover Leaside.’

The ‘joy of a headline-driven campaign,’ says Craig Cooper, EVP and co-CD at Flavour, is that it has legs. ‘[We had to think about] how the competition would react and whether they would launch a big ad blitz. So we wanted something that would sustain and go on. Every headline is fresh and this won’t run out of steam.’

In order to link the advertising to Toronto 1’s logo, Flavour incorporated the number one into the layout of the transit creative. This idea has also translated into the on-air look, developed by Toronto-based broadcast design firm Front: a number of IDs show the logo deconstruct, form a cityscape and then reassemble into the logo again.

‘We wanted to ensure synergies,’ says Johnson. ‘So we developed this design layout, and really it was an opportunity to leverage the number one as much as we can. We wanted to take ownership of that.’

Another thing Toronto 1 wanted to emphasize in its creative is the bright blue of its logo, which stands apart from the palettes of other Toronto stations, he says. ‘We thought Toronto is such a blue city – the Jays, the Maple Leafs – and [no broadcaster] was taking ownership of that.’

The ad campaign includes other media as well, such as TV, radio and street teams. Toronto 1 purchased space on Rogers’ U.S. specialty avails, so its 30-second image spot, showcasing key programs, is airing on American channels like A&E, CNN, TLS, CNBC and BET. In total, 250 spots ran weekly on the U.S. channels in the five weeks leading up to the launch.

The image spot, and a 15-second teaser ad were also brought to the streets, thanks to a grassroots initiative created by event-marketing firm GMR Marketing, a division of OMD. Five groups of three hit high-traffic areas; one of the team members wore a flat screen TV strapped to their shoulders, which played the ads, while the others handed out postcards informing Torontonians about the new channel.

The radio component will debut on Sept. 22 with the same irreverent tone as the transit campaign; at press time, the plan was to include personalities from the various shows, including Sharon Osbourne, and movie stars when possible.