Little Canada – the miniatures attraction that draws more than 120,000 visitors annually – recently unveiled Mini Media, a new opportunity for advertisers, allowing ads to be installed in the miniature milieu. Subway Canada is the first to launch footlong billboards, which are actually one foot long, inside the Toronto tourist attraction.
To help celebrate Mini Media and Subway’s new OOH campaign, the QSR will be holding a sampling event at Little Canada featuring Subway Footlong sandwiches and sidekicks, and handing out mini coupons for a discount on footlongs.
The campaign is a low-cost way of taking over real-life high foot-traffic destinations like Sankofa Square (formerly Yonge-Dundas) or Niagara Falls’ popular Clifton Hill neighbourhood, explains Julia Wong, Little Canada’s newly-minted director of marketing.
“You can place your advertisement across Canada in any of our seven destinations,” Wong says. “The possibilities are endless,” she says, telling strategy that Subway is so engrained in the culture, it made for a natural collab. The QSR has a “national” presence too, she adds, with advertisements also installed in the new Little Canada Maritimes miniature display.
To promote Mini Media, kits are being sent to brands, which include a mini press release, mini post cards, a mini sample billboard placement and a magnifying glass to help view the assets. For Mini Media, Dentsu is the creative partner and spPR is handling public relations.
Earlier this year, working with Dentsu Creative, Little Canada launched a campaign using stop motion to amplify its tiny offerings, and two characters, one of whom was a newcomer, the other, a local.
Little Canada has been open for three years, and is a relative new kid on the block. Right now, the brand is focusing on the GTA , plus tourists and is reaching them through digital ads, drawing an audience that includes parents of young kids, but a sizeable amount of date night couples and singles too.
Next year, Little Canada is expanding its footprint by recreating a northern Canadian cityscape, complete with accurate climate-control so that visitors can get a feel for the cold. There are always new stories to tell about landscapes and cultures nationwide, Wong notes.
