Annette Bourdeau

CFRB wants to talk
Toronto’s CFRB 1010 Radio, a property of Montreal-based Astral Media, is trying to raise its profile and get people talking by posing provocative questions around the city via the use of some unusual media placements.

Virgin island
Ah, V Fest. An annual celebration of music, Virgin Mobile, Sir Richard Branson and, of course, sponsorship activations.

Float on
Looking for a ‘patented amphibious billboard?’ Advertisers like McDonald’s, Disney and Mitsubishi apparently are. They’ve all used floating billboards by Malibu-based media supplier Billboard Boats.

Them’s fightin’ ads
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…uh, yeah. It’s a plane. A branded fighter jet, to be precise, being carted around New York City and attracting stares from curious onlookers.

Labatt’s sexy stash
Sure, moderation is probably the best plan when it comes to alcohol-infused nights out. But that’s not always realistic. So the latest advocacy ads from Toronto-based Labatt Breweries advise party-goers to be prepared, with two sexy executions showing a busty woman and a low-riding man stashing cab fare in their cleavage and crotch regions, respectively.

Candid Campbell
It takes a lot of guts to put an employee on camera admitting he doesn’t eat his own company’s food.

Something fishy
Parc Aquarium du Quebec is baiting visitors with a colourful outdoor campaign that includes unique media executions like posters on interior bus roofs and wrapped ‘fish benches.’ The latter plays on the common French expression banc de poisson, which can mean a group of fish or in this case, quite literally a bench of fish.

Is search overrated?
New Microsoft tool measures each online element – not just the last click.

Pop-top advercans
Just when you thought all possible advertising mediums had been exhausted, along comes another: pop can tabs.

Ford gets specific
Ford of Canada has set its sights on the burgeoning Asian-Canadian population, which clocked in at 1.6 million people in the 2006 Census, including South Asians. Its most recent campaign targeting

Fido lets the dolls out
What’s white, four storeys tall and completely unbranded?

Yahoo! gets wings
Yahoo! Adrenaline is off to a flying start. The portal’s newest online video channel, which launched last month, has recruited Toronto-based Red Bull Canada as a content partner. The energy drink brand has plenty of heart-racing video footage to share from its multitude of events, including a soapbox derby in Vancouver and street ball competitions across the country.

Sharp goes mad
Well played, Sharp. Well played.

Summer of Samsung
Samsung Canada has been pretty hard to miss this summer.

New friend request
Centennial College is encouraging people to expand their ‘social networks’ to encompass the world via Humanracebook.com, a new initiative that cleverly combines social responsibility with social media.