RRJ #4

Reference:

Wentz, L. (2010, Feb 18). Canada's marketers celebrate Olympics. Advertising Age. Retrieved Feb 21, 2010, from http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=142163

Summary:

A lot of Canadian companies rolled out their advertisements in order to boost the Olympic games in Vancouver. These ads are evaluated highly, and Canada's ad industry is focused on as much as the athletes in the Olympic games. There are some interesting ones among these ads for the Olympics. In terms of the one by Taxi, Bombardier, which designed the 12,000 Olympic torches, created the spot that demonstrated that the torches are weatherproof even in wintry Canada. Bell, Canada's telephone and telecommunications company, has bought air time for more than 2,000 commercials during the Winter Games. Its agencies created various ads, 24 English-language and 23 French-language TV spots to prevent people getting tired of the Bell's ad. The spots appear to sell Canadian niceness as well as their merchandise. Tim Horon's, the Canadian coffee shop, rolled out a tear-worthy spot dubbed “Welcome Home” during coverage of the Olympic opening ceremonies. The spot shows a tearful story, a reunion of family. The family seems to have been separated for some time; the husband reunites with his wife and two kids at the airport with the winter coats that he prepared for them, and he hands his wife a cup of Tim Horton's coffee and welcomes her to Canada. Tom Horton's offers consumers a place to tell their stories and upload videos and pictures; the spot is based on the one of their stories. Wrigley, a chewing gum manufacturer, is donating a portion of their gum sales to Canadian athletes. People can participate in its financial support for the athletes by chewing more of their gum, and they also can see the amount of the donation on giant digital billboards updated every 60 seconds. Wrigley changed the package of gum to the one printed with an image of a Canadian athlete, and added a small Canadian maple leaf to each gum piece.

Reaction:

The Olympic Games cause big economic effect to each country whether it is the site of the Olympic or not. Therefore, companies all over the world create various ads for the Olympic to boost their sales, and these ads tend to be better than their usual ads. The Tim Horton's spot expresses human's delicate emotion well in a 90-second spot. The husband welcomes all visitors to Canada as well as his family in the spot, and the Tim Horton's coffee warms his wife; also “the Tim Horton's spot” warms our hearts by the tearful story. A woman watching the family with a smile in the spot reflects audience who are watching the spot; we are in the same situation that is watching the tearful reunion of the family. I think that we feel a sense of seeing ourselves in a mirror when the woman appears in the picture, and we may make a similar expression as her. The spot uses various techniques to make people move their emotions; one of them is that they created the spot to be based on a true story contributed in EveryCup.ca, a place where consumers tell their stories. People can feel the story closely and the spot highlights the connection between Tim Horton's and customers. Wrigley also attracted many people by its interesting strategy, large-scale fund-raising for the Canadian athletes and showing the amount of the donation on giant digital billboards. People can participate in the fund-raising by buying their gum, and they can feel more of a sense that they support the Canadian athletes when they look of the billboard. These provoke people's consumer appetite because they want to support the Canadian athletes, and Wrigley offers people the way to support them in an easy way.