Grassroots Advertising

Mirvish turns to QR codes to promote latest production

admin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:07:40 +0000

Originally Posted by Marketing Mag

Mirvish Productions has determined there’s no place like phones to promote its latest production.

The Toronto theatre company has partnered with street-level advertising firm Grassroots Advertising on a local campaign for The Wizard of Oz that uses out-of-home posters equipped with near field communication (NFC) and QR code capabilities.

The 24-inch by 36-inch “Smartposters” are a new addition to Grassroots’ one-year-old Street Frames line, which features more than 1,000 exterior advertising faces – typically situated at convenience store entrances – in the downtown core of major markets including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary.

The posters feature the iconic image of Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, accompanied by an invitation to “tap or scan for Oz.” When consumers interact with the posters, they are taken to a mobile-optimized site containing show information, a YouTube clip and a buy tickets option. The posters will appear at convenience stores throughout the GTA.

Michael Gillissie, vice-president of sales and operations for Grassroots, says the prompt is an important component of the relatively nascent NFC advertising market.

“People still need to have a little direction,” he says. “Just because you have a QR code doesn’t mean the average person is automatically going to scan it. If you put ‘Scan for a coupon’ or ‘Scan to see a trailer,’ you tell people what they’re going to get, it helps get that buy-in.”

Each Smartposter unit is equipped with a unique NFC tag that enables Grassroots to record geographical information and the number of scans per poster. Toronto-based POPCodes provided the NFC and QR Code creation and tracking for the campaign.

Recent research from ComScore finds that 15.6% of Canadian smartphones are NFC-enabled, while Juniper Research suggests one in five smartphones will possess NFC capability by 2014.

Mirvish conjures up smartposter campaign for Wizard of Oz

admin — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:02:06 +0000

Originally posted by Media in Canada

With Dorothy, Toto and the gang back on stage at Toronto’s Ed Mirvish Theatre for the latest production of The Wizard of Oz, Mirvish Productions is supporting the musical with a broad campaign that includes Grassroots Advertising’s network of NFC and QR code-enabled smartposters.

When tapped or scanned with a smartphone, the posters bring consumers to a mobile website, which features a YouTube clip, showtime information and the ability to buy tickets.

Targeting women aged 35 to 55 as well as families with kids ages eight and older, the smartposters, which are located at convenience stores across the GTA, are part of a larger campaign that includes TV spots on CTV, CBC and City, radio ads on CHFI and Boom 97.3, and traditional billboards. The media buy was handled in-house by the Mirvish Productions team, which also designed the creative in tandem with Toronto-based Cosmic Design.

John Karastamatis, director of communications, Mirvish Productions, tells MiC that Mirvish has used QR codes in the past, but says that the use of Grassroots Advertising’s network of NFC-enabled smartposters allowed Mirvish to promote the play in unusual locations that it wouldn’t have before.

He adds that advertising the play at convenience stores offered an opportunity to reach out to and engage with a broader audience at street level.

Though the production of The Wizard of Oz runs into June, the smartposters will be in market until the middle of March.

Massey Hall/ Roy Thompson Hall 2012-13 Season

admin — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 18:30:23 +0000

Massey Hall / Roy Thompson Hall featured Wildpostings on their 2012-13 season brochure! Grassroots was part of their advetising campaign and posted identical creatives all over the city! Did you see these posters on the street?

Loblaws 3D Chalk Art

admin — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 18:34:44 +0000

Loblaw’s celebrated the one year anniversary of it’s Queen & Portland location with a one of a kind chalk art display created by Chalk Master Dave, exclusively for Grassroots Advertising.

Grassroots – Out of Home Showdown Award Winner

admin — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:44:43 +0000

At Ad Club’s OOH Showdown, the first annual competition of OOH media suppliers’ campaign executions, Grassroots was named a finalist in the Street Level category and took home the trophy! The win was for Mediacom’s VW Art Heist. Congratulations to all!

Grassroots Queen & King of OOH Day 2011

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 15:29:55 +0000

Lynne Brady, Business Manager at Grassroots and Chair of Ad Club’s OOH Day, along with her committee of industry peers put together an amazing event on Sept 21 at 99 Sudbury. See her welcome speech on the Grassroots YouTube Channel.

If that wasn’t good enough, to cap off the day, our very own John Labignan took home the coveted People’s Choice Award for Sales Executive. Yay John!! There will be a full page ad in an upcoming issue of Marketing Magazine featuring the winners.

Summer Contest to Win An iPad2

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:00:45 +0000

While we promoted the *?#pad2 as the prize, our winner chose a Blackberry Playbook instead (no offense to the ipad).

The lucky winner was…….

Eugenia Kung | Strategy Supervisor
Starcom MediaVest Group

Congrats Eugenia & enjoy!

STREET FRAMES – NEW!

admin — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 18:49:45 +0000

The latest addition to the Grassroots family of products. Over 1,000 frames situated on the exterior and interior of retail outlets, primarily variety and convenience stores.

Major Markets: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.

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admin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:45:04 +0000

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admin — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:44:12 +0000