Edmonton Journal

Voice of a City - In celebration of the Edmonton Journal's 100th anniversary, the Edmonton Journal created, published and marketed a sourcebook of the city's social history titled, Voice of a City, The Edmonton Journal's First Century 1903 to 2003. Not only was the book created as a centennial gift for Edmonton Journal Employees, schools, local dignitaries and clients, but it was sold at a retail level as well. In creating this book the Journal hoped to strategically re-purpose content from the newspaper and it's archives, providing another opportunity to showcase product relevance and quality. The Edmonton Journal also hoped to reinforce it's positioning as the most credible and authoritative source of local news and information, all while achieving retail sales revenues to cover the costs of publishing, distribution and marketing. Voice of a city was a true labour of love for the Edmonton Journal's Editorial and Marketing team. Researched, written and designed over 12 months, the book launched on the Edmonton Journal's 100th birthday and became the centerpiece of centennial celebrations. Various ads ran in the Edmonton Journal to promote the book and a series of in-store book signings were conducted to guarantee premium retail display space throughout the pre-Christmas period. Voice of the City was sold at retail and remained the local bestseller for four consecutive weeks. The book reached sold out status in 10 weeks and the revenue goals for the project have been exceeded.

Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Oilers All - Time Roster - In celebration of the Edmonton Oilers 25th Anniversary, the Edmonton Journal published the Edmonton Oilers All-Time Roster in a special Heritage Classic Edition on Nov. 21, 2003. The All - Time Roster consisted of a photo of every Oiler who played a regular season game from the Alberta Oilers to the current NHL team. In conjunction with the Roster that appeared in the newspaper, a poster of the Roster was created with the intent that it would provided an excellent keep - sake for many Edmonton Oiler fans. In a joint Editorial-Marketing effort, the photos and players names were organized in alphabetical order and placed on a poster sized approximately 18"X24". Ads were placed in the Edmonton Journal advertising the posters at a cost of $13.00. The Edmonton Oilers All-Time Roster sold significantly well, exceeding original estimations of total sales. Initially, 500 posters were hoped to be sold, however a second printing was requested and total sales were for 1000 posters. With the help of the Editorial-Marketing creative team and the always enthusiastic Edmonton Oiler supporters, the Edmonton Oiler All - Time Roster was an unqualified success.

Edmonton Journal

100th Birthday - Disney - The main purpose of this promotion was to create awareness and generate excitement about the Edmonton Journal's 100th birthday. In co-operation with Disney, an interactive, in paper contest was created to reward and thank loyal readers. Readers were invited to search for the 4 Disneyland game pieces hidden in the Journal for a chance to win 1 of 4 family trips to Disneyland. Teaser ads ran weekly over the course of the month, followed by full page ads explaining the details of the contest and encouraging winners to find the 4 game pieces in the following day's Edmonton Journal. TV support also helped build interest and excitement throughout the contest period. Once readers had collected all of the game pieces, they were required to mail in their entries for a chance to win the trip to Disneyland. At the conclusion of the contest, an ad featuring pictures of the winning families wearing Mickey Mouse hats was featured in the Edmonton Journal. The promotion was a huge success generating a great deal of awareness about the 100th birthday celebrations. An overwhelming response of more than 30,000 entries were received from contest ads. The Edmonton Journal's November seven-day net circulation increased over the previous months circulation by 1.5%.

Edmonton Journal

The Heritage Classic - The Heritage Classic Fair Play Contest was created in co-operation with the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club to generate excitement about the highly sought-after tickets for the first NHL Outdoor Game: The Heritage Classic. Only 7000 tickets to the Heritage Classic hockey game were made available for public purchase. To ensure fair access to tickets and to minimize the impact of ticket scalpers, a lottery was conducted. Official entry forms were printed in the Edmonton Journal for 14 consecutive days. 1,750 entrants were selected and given the opportunity to purchase event tickets. Limited on-line entry access was also provided. The response to the lottery was overwhelming and proved that public awareness of interest in the event exceeded all expectations. The Oilers reported the total number of entries to be more than 750,000 and 94% of them were newspaper entries. The Journal's single copy circulation increased an average of 14% daily during the period and vending box sell-outs were common. It was estimated that an entry was submitted from nearly 50% of all papers published during the period. This promotion allowed the Edmonton Journal to demonstrate the awesome power of the newspaper when building awareness and stimulating reader behaviour. The promotion was an exceptional marketing opportunity that delivered readership, circulation and stronger long-term partnership.

Edmonton Journal

Meet the Locals - The "Meet the Locals" campaign was designed to build awareness of a Saturday section called ed which is designed for 18-25 year olds. The campaign features authentic, young achievers who have initiated a local trend. Like ed, these people are multi-faceted and interesting. Like ed, the tone of the campaign is a blend of funny, ironic, serious, snide and thoughtful. A washroom ad campaign was developed and appeared on campus and in high traffic bars and restaurants. This campaign launched a few months before ed reached its first anniversary of publication. As the section had evolved, so too had its personality. This campaign crystallized that personality while inviting new readers to sample the product.

Edmonton Journal

Edmonton Oilers History Book - In co-operation with the Edmonton Oilers, the Edmonton Journal authored, designed, published and sold the club's official history book. The objective was to strategically re-purpose content from the newspaper and its archives, generate new revenue and reinforce the Edmonton Journal's positioning as the most credible and authoritative source of sports news and information. A joint Editorial-Marketing team took the project from concept throughout to completion in six months. The Edmonton Journal provided the majority of the photos from its archives and developed the story that threaded the history into an entertaining and highly readable book. The Edmonton Journal leveraged its many partnerships to promote the book. In addition to a campaign at Oilers games, direct mail notices were inserted in to Ticketmaster mailouts. A bulk sales offer was created for team corporate sponsors. A series of instore book signings ensured the book signings ensured the book would maintain premium retail display space throughout the month of December. With endorsements from the Oilers' owners, President and General Manager, the book achieved impressive retail sales very quickly after its November launch. Within two weeks, the book landed at the top of the local bestsellers list. In its fourth week, Canada's largest retail bookseller advised that it was the 17th most popular book in Canada. A remarkable ach8ievement for such a local title. Currently, more than 16,500 books have been sold and the Edmonton Journal-Oilers partnership is on track to share profits estimated at $150,000. This successful marketing project has paved the way for many future special revenue generating opportunities.

Edmonton Journal

The Barb Tarbox Story - At the end of her life, Barb Tarbox took her personal crusade against smoking to high school classrooms across Canada. Her gritty, in-your-face presentations of the effects of cancer shocked and inspired tens of thousands of teens to become or remain tobacco-free. Barb gave Journal writer David Staples and photographer Greg Southam free rein to record her journey. After her death, the Edmonton Journal partnered with the provincial government agency responsible for promoting the anti-smoking message. The tobacco-free campaign strategy focused on the 50,000 junior high school students and the need to remind them of Barb's message. Using the information published previously in the paper, Staples and Southam re-tooled the story for the junior high demographic. The booklet format was chosen for its comic book look and feel. 50,000 copies of the booklet were distributed through school health teachers and guidance counselors. The Barb Tarbox booklet resulted in $15,000 incremental advertising revenue.

Pembroke Daily Observer

Highschool Dedication - Fridays - We started a page once a week for local schools - high schools and college - and have received a great response! Planned to dedicate a page every Friday, got it bookmarked as a regular layout notice to ad dept, had creative ad builders design template, sent out letters to schools, had meeting with reps, set up schedule and started. Noticed increase in single copy sales on Fridays (students buying papers), also feedback personally and in writing. Younger readers are being realized!

Vancouver Sun & Province

Homesearch Magazine - Home search came to fruition from the idea of giving our clients a one-stop shop for their advertising needs. With both daily newspapers having strong core real estate products, the natural progression in our minds was a freestanding niche publication. Homesearch was designed to give our clients a high end product that offered high gloss on heavy stock. The freestanding publication was bundled with our Friday Fabulous Homes in The Province, which enabled us to boost our regular distribution with targeted strategic key rack locations. The monthly shelf life of the magazine would compliment both daily newspapers without cannibalizing our core daily real estate sections. Distribution day was decided on the fact that we were able to increase traffic to Developers' sites from spreading our products throughout the week. Our Province newspaper has the Fabulous Homes real estate section on Friday and the Vancouver Sun has the WestCoast Homes real estate section on Saturday. Thursday was chosen as the best day to distribute Homesearch. This was done knowing it would compliment and drive traffic to our weekend products. The Homesearch distribution strategy has many features, all designed to increase exposure and its pick-up rate. Our distribution centers include Marketplace IGA's (high end supermarket) Chevron gas stations (attached to our newspaper racks), real estate offices, public transit stations, community centers, restaurants, as well as our dealer network. Recently, we also added Royal Bank of Columbia will now carry our magazine. As an added bonus, at the end of each publication all returned copies are bundled with our daily delivery and targeted geographically to selected subscribers, which provides us 200% allotment of the magazine. We feel that this strategy will enhance the exposure and keep Homesearch top of mind. Our goal for the inaugural issue was to obtain no less than 24 pages including advertising and advertorial. We exceeded this and continue to surpass it with an average of 44 pages since the launch, with our larges issue being 48 pages.

Hamilton Spectator

Bringing Back the Bay - This initiative was sponsored by American Water Services Canada in partnership with the Bay Area Restoration Council, both organizations with high interest in promoting public awareness of efforts to restore Hamilton Harbour (Burlington Bay). Sponsorship enabled a reprint of the series as a stand-alone publication for educational use. The original content was published as a week-long series in November 2003 and won numerous awards. Production of five teaching packages, tied into Ontario curriculum, which utilize the content in Bringing Back the Bay as well as current issues of the Hamilton Spectator. The teaching programs targeted a number of subject areas from grades 7 through 12. Promotion launched on Earth Day (April 22, 2003). To date, 150 classrooms have participated in the program, representing 15,000 associated newspaper sales and a reach of approximately 4,000 students.

Hamilton Spectator

The Pulse - This was a pilot project initiated by The Hamilton Spectator in partnership with the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board and the Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board. Its objective was to provide reluctant writers with a chance to be published in the daily newspaper, while providing reluctant readers with encouragement to read, based on content produced by peers. Sponsorship from the Hamilton Training Advisory Board enabled the reach of the newspapers featuring the weekly Pulse page to all schools in the Hamilton-Wentworth Public and Catholic boards, representing over 1,000 incremental NIE circulation every Monday. While the program is still relatively new, we have been very impressed by the quality of submissions from participating schools, and educators are very enthusiastic about the value of the program and the motivation it has provided to reluctant readers and writers.

Hamilton Spectator

Poison - Sukhwinder Singh Dhillon lied, cheated, committed bigamy - and murdered, using strychnine. The Canadian immigrant had a pattern of returning to his native India to find new wives, then killing them. For years he got away with it, until an insurance investigator and two determined detectives brought him to justice. On Jan. 23, 2003, at the conclusion of his murder trial, Dhillon went to prison to begin serving two life sentences. On Jan. 25 The Hamilton Spectator began publishing Poison, a massive narrative project on the murders and on the killer's life story. While other journalists had covered the lengthy trial, reporter Jon Wells spent a year piecing together Dhillon's story. This included a journey to India, with photographer Scott Gardner, to research and record the scenes of Dhillon's life. We published a chapter a day for 31 consecutive publishing days - 2 full broadsheet pages each weekday, and 6 pages in our Saturday edition. That's 88 pages in total. We had never tried anything like this. In the newsroom there was the usual murmuring and hand-wringing. Prior to launch, our anxious circulation director feared that this much type would send readers fleeing in droves. Readers loved it. Before the series was over, the same circulation director was asking if we could somehow stretch out the series a bit longer. The city was buzzing. Many customers told us they literally waited for the paper to arrive each day - notwithstanding the fact we had covered the trial weeks earlier, so everyone knew how the story would turn out. Single-copy sales jumped nearly 5 per cent per day throughout poison's five-week fun, the largest single-copy content surge in the newspaper's history. When we hosted two public forums on the issues raised by Poison, both events were standing-room only, and people spontaneously began lining up to have reporter Jon Wells autograph copies of the newspaper. The Poison series won two other major awards in 2003--a National Newspaper Award for Special Project and an Ontario Newspaper Award for Special Project.

Hamilton Spectator

Open Forum - Every paper has their Letters to the Editor in order to have readers communicate their communicate their thoughts about what's going on in the community as well as how we're doing in our reporting. Both readers and writers often wish they could express their thoughts in person. So, the question was raised, "Why can't we bring them to us and talk about it?" Consequently, that's exactly what we did. We needed to be more interactive and accessible to our readers, and with a large auditorium in our building, we were able to develop the "Open Forum" concept. Once a month, a general interest topic or issue is selected and a panel is chosen from local experts and newspaper journalists. We then invite our readers to the paper to participate in these town halls. A partnership was developed with the local Cable station to televise these forums. The public comes to the paper to ask questions of the experts or to talk about the issues or topics. For those who cannot come, we have made it easy for them to reach us by email or telephone during the live show. It runs for an hour and a half with two 3-minute breaks, and is always moderated by one of the paper's newsroom staff. The forums are advertised through newspaper and cable television advertising. And, by using monthly themes, we are able to target specific audiences. For example, for our Bullying session, the school boards sent out mass emails to all of their principals so that the word would get through the school system, where bullying is the most prevalent. To date, we have had overwhelming success with attendance. In fact, with some topics, we've had to schedule two in one month to accommodate the interest level from the community. In addition, we received tremendous feedback from our readers who have attended. Their comments range from, "It's nice to see that the paper really does care" to "I hope this continues - we have a lot to talk about"". Although these results are not quantifiably measurable, the feedback has been strong enough to continue the investment in time and resources to the program. Further topics include: The Rise & Fall of the Steel Industry, Gangs, Healthcare and Education. We certainly look forward to the newfound relationship with our readers.

Red Deer Advocate

Served Daily - To Coincide with the launch of our newly redesigned newspaper, we created a marketing campaign directed to attract and renew interest in the Advocate, called Served Daily. We rented a local "fifties diner" style restaurant as the setting for an evening, and enlisted volunteers from the advertising department to dress in specific costumes for the photo shoot to portray sections of the newspaper. Themes and costumes portrayed included a firefighter (local news), a doctor (medical/local news), baseball player (sports), businesswoman, etc. The campaign ran for two months and successfully generated increased awareness of our redesigned product and the additions to it. The Served Daily campaign was part of an overall strategy that resulted in an increase in paid circulation of five and one half percent.

Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal

Election Tabloid - The overall plan was to increase election spending and provide a vehicle for which candidates would have the opportunity to explain their platform and get their faces out to the public. This offered our readers a section uncluttered by the everyday election ads in the daily paper. A sales letter was sent to all of the Candidates informing them of the special Thunder Bay Votes Tabloid. The tabloid was full of community leaders invited by the advertising manager to write various topics of concern and opportunity facing the City of Thunder Bay. Tourism, Industry, Hospital and Security Development… were all assigned. The tabloid was scheduled to be published five days before the election so as not to interfere with regular election advertising. $18,863 was realized in additional ad revenue. This commitment early in the campaign also allowed us to attract the vast majority of the available ad dollars from the more than 110 candidates.

Lethbridge Herald

Get Fit - The Newspapers in Education (NIE) program partnered with The Chinook Health Region to produce a tabloid for children to encourage exercise and staying fit. Although the product was purchased as a whole package many of the pages were adapted for Canada and for Canadian children. I worked with the local College and the "Fit For Life Centre" to adapt the food guide and exercises. 10,000 copies were printed with all Elementary School children receiving one. Every advertiser plus the Chinook Health Unit got copies. Teachers were calling, along with the University and College requesting more copies. Teachers and students loved the product and can't wait until next year! Over $ was raised by Advertising dollars that went to support the NIE program!

Lethbridge Herald

Playing It Safe - The newspaper in education (NIE) program partnered with the Safety City Society to produce a quality tabloid that would teach children general safety rules. Over 10,000 copies were distributed to all local and rural Elementary schools. Schools in Lethbridge had their copies delivered when the safety City Reps went to visit the classrooms. Partnership between the Lethbridge Herald (NIE) program and Safety City was developed. Advertising was sold to support this publication. All schools were on board. Parents, teachers and readers loved this publication. Students were so excited about this publication and to learn all about safety while having fun at the same time.

Lethbridge Herald

Get In The Game - The Lethbridge Herald Newspapers in Education (NIE) program partnered with the local WHL Hockey team. We produced 1000 quality limited Edition Hockey card sets promoting the players. On two separate occasions fans were invited to the game to have their Hockey card sets autographed by all the players. 500 sets were given out at a home game to the first 500 children. 350 cards were given to each participating business. Customers were encouraged to visit all 24 merchants to collect a complete set. 100 sets were also for sale for $10 with profits benefiting the NIE program. These sets SOLD OUT in less then 3 weeks. Partnerships developed. Players photos - Bios sent to the Lethbridge Herald. Advertisers paid $330 to have their own limited edition card. Marketed in the paper. Each advertiser received an autographed set of the hockey cards. Results were overwhelming, Readers, fans, community members were so impressed with the cards. Revenue was over $7000 for NIE. And $1000 from the sale of the cards.

Thunder Bay Chronicle Journal

2003 Ontario Provincial Election - Our marketing plan was to sell two publications focusing on the all-candidates debates for which The Chronicle-Journal was a sponsor. The Candidates would buy two pages in each tabloid - one of which would run in the first week of the election campaign. The second tabloid would run 3-days prior to Election Day. The early contact and signed agreements made us the No. 1 choice for their regular ad placements. The Chronicle-journal was able to attract all the candidates of the major parties participants. Generated $27,882 in ad revenue for the two tabloids. Circulation was 100% market coverage. The Chronicle-Journal and our TMC Extra were used for each tabloid. Numerous promo ads were run to alert the readers of the days the Election Tabloids were to appear. The tabloids confirmed in our reader's minds that we are the No.1 media for election news and views.

Medicine Hat News

The Leaders of Tomorrow 2003 - 8 Leaders of Tomorrow are honoured each year in Medicine Hat. This 12 page tabloid introduces all of the Nominees to the general public. Banner ads are sold on the bottom of all pages. The edition is distributed in the news the last Saturday before the selection committee begins. Bios and nominations are forwarded to the News by the Leaders of Tomorrow Committee. Sales reps are responsible for selling banner ads. Circulation - 16,500, Revenue $3,000 This was the first time all nominees, not just winners were recognized.

Cape Breton Post

Newspaper in Education - Newspaper in Education, NIE, is an international program that started almost 50 years ago to advance the use of newspapers in schools. The main purpose of the program is to improve reading, spelling and writing abilities across Cape Breton during a time we have all experienced many changes across this wonderful island. There's plenty of evidence that Cape Breton's initiative and ingenuity, which created a long and dynamic industrial base in traditional industries, such as coal and steel for more than a hundred years, still remain. However, Cape Breton entrepreneurs have taken advantage of new opportunities as well as local businesses in making Cape Breton grow, especially during the last decade. The Cape Breton Post In Education program also offers Spelling Bee competitions and A Young Entrepreneur Program for high school students. During the 2003-04 school year the Cape Breton Post will support a comprehensive NIE program, by providing curriculum guides, workshops, tours, supplemental programs, and special events such as the Spelling Bee and other competitions. Teachers use the newspapers as textbooks and supplements in areas such as reading, writing, math, geography, science, history, economics, language arts, and special education. The newspaper can be incorporated into nearly any classroom subject and grade level from kindergarten to adult. The NIE program is in 31 Cape Breton schools and 2100 newspapers are distributed daily Monday to Friday. We are a partnership consisting of sponsors, teachers, students and the Cape Breton Post is committed to the youth of our community. About $67,000 has been generated for the project. "Since the onset of NIE program the level of enthusiasm from both students and staff has exceeded all expectations. All teachers are constantly discovering new and innovative methods of introducing our students to the world of information available to them daily". "The long term benefits of this program in our schools should not and cannot be under estimated." "Literacy, in a broad sense, reading the word as well as the world, is something that the Newspapers In Education program supports so well. Any opportunity our children have to become engaged in reading is fantastic, especially when they are reading about Cape Breton and about opinions, perspectives and events that touch their own lives." Laura Murchinson, Principal Malcolm Munroe "NIE has proven to be a success with my students. I have seen students who were showing little interest suddenly becoming tuned in. We are using the papers to become familiar with what the paper has to offer various age groups. We have focused on different types of writing such as the news story and an editorial, leading up to the students writing their own. " The students are also doing a project on "How the Cape Breton Post Portrays Teens: by charting the types of articles in the paper. They are very keen on this. This will be followed up with a question on their exam. The newspapers have been a great resource for me in the classroom and it's great that it is free!" Neeta Kumar Grade 7 English teacher, Whitney Pier Memorial Junior High School. The students at shipyard Elementary are very fortunate to be involved with the Newspaper in Education Program. Teachers and students work together to familiarize themselves with many issues that are local and worldwide. Students really enjoy the sports and entertainment sections and love to comment on many of the pertinent issues of the day. It is a wonderful way to teach literacy. Bernadette Hollohan, Grade Four Teacher Shipyard Elementary.

Cape Breton Post

Reflections - Reflections is a weekly feature that explores the historical character of Cape Breton Island. It's essentially a trip down memory lane that examines the people, places and things of Cape Breton. The goal of th extended feature is to enlihten and entertain readers of all ages. Post readers have become weekly participants of Cape Breton Life. Since the Post introduced this feature to its weekend section readers have established themselves as our partners by not only submitting photos but also by suggesting story ideas. The page reaches a variety of readers as evidenced by the positive feedback the page has and continues to generate. Readers have also requested information contained in some of the Reflections stories and have suggested follow-up features too. Weekly page attracts advertisers, reader participation and is well received in our market.

Thunder Bay The Chronicle Journal

Where are they now? - Name of feautre is best description. Idea is to profile someone from community and tell readers "where they are now" and what they are doing these days. Run feature every Tuesday. Solicit ideas or tips from readers. Response has been overwhelming. High readership feature. Family members still in Thunder Bay often seek numerous copies of paper. Readers often comment - "so that's what XXXX is up to these days".

Thunder Bay The Chronicle Journal

The Helping Hands/Focus On/Thanks A Lot! Feature gives readers and community a forum to come together for the betterment of Thunder Bay through volunteering. Gives forum (Thanks A Lot!) to recognize special efforts by volunteers in community. Runs every Monday on our "Northwest Living" page. We solicit submissions, and get numerous requests for inclusion. Response has been very positive, especially towards "Thanks A Lot!" feature. Local organizations are thankful for exposure they receive. Feedback has included comments indicating that volunteers feel "valued".

Thunder Bay The Chronicle Journal

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down provides readers forum to praise or criticize, other than through letter to editor. Furthers the connection between community and newspaper as community forum. Ask readers for submissions, which we then run in our editorial space each Saturday. Very popular feature. In short period of time has become one of our most read features, with numerous submissions to choose from each week.

Thunder Bay The Chronicle Journal

Home Page in Sports Section - Provide forum for local sports teams/organizations achievements to be recognized in a prominent manner. Provide an open page each Wednesday in Sports Section for "Home Games", stats, standings, upcoming events/games involving local sport teams/organizations. Page always includes local sports photo. Very popular feature among local athletes and parents seeking "scrapbook material".

Thunder Bay The Chronicle Journal

Sunday Report - Provide forum for in-depth look at an issue or local event as part of our Sunday features package. "Sunday Report" is what name implies, a Sunday feature. Gives readers a locally produced feature on issues that affect their lives. Reporters and photographers work together closely to produce a "Sunday Report". Gives us a solid local feature package for our Sunday paper. Able to promote feature on front page, helping to up readership on Sundays which traditionally is our smallest circulation day.

Guelph Mercury

Intensely Local - Suffering from a decade-old image of being an old-fashioned, reliable newspaper, the editorial department re-designed the paper and updated its content to appeal to a younger demographic. The accompanying re-launch campaign not only had to establish a new image for the paper, it also had to wage a battle against the Toronto dailies (Toronto is just 40 miles from Guelph) and remind the community that only the Guelph Mercury covers the Guelph scene. "Intensly Local" images, including rabid images, including rabid fans of the Ontario Hockey League's Guelph Storm, remind Guelph readers of the Mercury's local focus. IN addition to our in-paper campaign we used point of purchase materials including rack cards, window stickers, floor stickers and cash register danglers. A readership study undertaken during this re-launch period indicates a year-over-year increase in our overall RBS score from 3.1 to 3.3. Our target demographic, 25 - 49 year olds, increased from 2.6 to 3. The Readership Institute suggests that an increase of RBS by .2 or more is statistically significant.

Windsor Star

The Windsor Star Search for Freedom Festival Ambassadors (Star Search) evolved from a partnership between the paper and the International Freedom Festival (IFF) - an event that celebrates the friendship between two cities, Windsor and Detroit. A casting call attracted 50 submissions of videotapes, CDs, presentations and letters. A panel of judges selected 32 contestants to move on to the second level of the competition. Bars, restaurants and clubs that were part of an in-paper advertising feature called NiteLife, hosted Windsor Star Search Nights. With a Windsor Star representative acting as Emcee, contestants rallied votes and used the evenings to promote themselves, the IFF and The Windsor Star. In conjunction with the NiteLife appearances, in-paper profiles of the contestants were featured. Talents of the eager contenders ranged from young professionals and students looking for opportunities and exposure, to an up-and-coming vee-jay in a superman suit, to a local woman who went on to join the Radio City Rockettes. Campaigning wrapped-up with hundreds of readers taking a last look at the 32 contestants doing their thing at Windsor Crossings, Windsor's largest outlet shopping mall. The final event was followed by a double-page photo spread and particulars about the contestants and a Star Search voting ballot. Voting readers were eligible for prizes including weekends in Toronto, concert tickets, hickey tickets, etc. More than 20,000 votes were counted and 12 of Windsor's best young adults went on to represent IFF and The Windsor Star in the Freedom Festival, the largest international festival in North America. The Ambassadors participated in the opening ceremonies, the Canada Day Parade and traditional IFF events, but what really got the attention of this young group was the opportunities to meet and introduce famous acts such as the Guess Who, Chantal Kreviazuk and Sum 41. Bobby Rahal, racing legend and founder of the Stars of Tomorrow cart racing tournament, invited Ambassadors to present trophies to winning drivers and future stars. The list of exciting events went on and on, including the opportunity to introduce The Windsor Star Search Ambassadors and the band to the screaming fans of Sum 41. It was a great time in the Marketing department - 32 extra hands out in the community promoting a city festival, and more importantly, the newspaper. This campaign attracted the attention of some of the most outgoing, intelligent, talented and patriotic young readers. Young readers who became ambassadors and helped us market the newspaper to their peers. 2,000 reader responses accounting for 20,000 votes. Star Search nights provided added value to bar/restaurant advertisers. A successful initiative to reach young readers.

Windsor Star

Which is Windsor's Hockey Team? - After decades of debate, it was time to settle the most controversial sports questions in Windsor's history… which NHL team is Windsor's favourite? Are we a Maple Leaf town or a Red Wing town? The Windsor Star asked the readers to settle the score once and for all. A weeklong teaser campaign set the stage for the challenge. Readers responded by taking their newspaper ballot and visiting their local Canadian Tire store to vote for their favourite hockey team. Displays, posters, visible ballot boxes and newspaper racks created in-store excitement, competition and a few debates. The store staffs dressed in their favourite team jerseys and fueled the fire for the competition. Scores appeared in a daily tote board along with a voting ballot. Determined to win, diehard fans picked up a paper and visited the voting booths day after day. The challenge ended after two weeks of voting and more than 19,600 entries. Finally, the long-time debate was settled: 65 per cent of respondents claim the Toronto Maple Leafs as Windsor's Hockey Team. The paper provided promotional space, creative, administrative assistance,, limousine service and tickets to a Red Wings vs. Maple Leafs game. To be part of the campaign, retailers paid $10,000 and provided $1,000 in prize money and two winning team jerseys. As well, each store was responsible for counting ballots and reporting daily totals to the newspaper. There were 19,600 reader responses.