May 14
Food delivery service SkipTheDishes is thanking Canadians for supporting their local restaurants with a new video featuring its spokesperson, Jon Hamm.
The two-minute video from Arrivals + Departures features the U.S. actor calling out five of the most generous Canadian cities since the app added functionality that enables users to tip their favourite dining establishment. Canadians have collectively donated more than $500,000 to the country’s restaurants since the functionality was added on March 23.
Shot via Zoom, the ad features Hamm, hair ever so slightly shaggier after two months in self-isolation, taking a “virtual tour” of Canada while riffing on various city names like Barrie (“What a charming and thoughtful group of Ontarians to name an entire city after some guy named Barry”) and Fredericton, N.B. (“all this talk of New Brunswick is making me crave fiddleheads. Just love those twirly greens”).
The spot ends with Hamm wheeling his chair out of frame, and urging Canadians to “stay safe, stay full and stay hungry to help.”
May 12
Nancy Crimi-Lamanna has been promoted to FCB Canada chief creative officer. Crimi-Lamanna had previously been co-CCO of FCB Toronto with Jeff Hilts, who will continue in that role.
“With the incredible growth that FCB has had in Canada over the last few years and the increasing role that our team in Canada is playing within FCB’s North American model, it is imperative that we have top leaders like Nancy closely aligned with clients we serve across multiple offices,” said FCB Canada president Bryan Kane.
“Canada—and our global network as a whole—will benefit from Nancy’s tenacious leadership and creative point of view,” added FCB global chief creative officer Susan Credle.
A year ago Tuesday, Toronto Raptors fans across the country experienced one of the most memorable moments in the team’s history, when Kawhi Leonard made his famous, buzzer-beating, four-bounces-on-the-rim series-winning shot.
With the NBA on pause, Coors Light and its creative agency Rethink used the anniversary to ask fans to relive that euphoric moment while stuck at home.
“Celebrate this iconic moment by remaking your own version using whatever you’ve got at home,” said the brewer on social posts that went up Tuesday. Share your shot by posting a video with #TheShotChallenge.”
Fans have until May 26 to share their own version of the shot for a chance to win court side seats to a Raptors home game next season. (Please let fans be allowed next season, please let fans be allowed next season, please let fans be allowed next season…)
Kruger Products has enlisted seven NHL players to participate in its ongoing #RollingItForward COVID-19 relief initiative. The players, including the Calgary Flames’ Milan Lucic, Toronto Maple Leafs’ Tyson Barrie and the Vancouver Canucks’ Bo Horvat.
All of the players are making donations to Food Banks Canada and using their social media channels to ask Canadians to perform an act of neighbourly kindness, such as picking up extra groceries or buying a gift card for a local business.
“We hope our collaboration with NHL players will further inspire Canadians to do their part with act of neighbourly kindness, no matter how large or small,” says chief marketing officer Susan Irving.
Susan Kruger launched #RollingItForward three weeks ago, delivering care packages of tissue products to frontline hospital workers in Canada’s major cities.
May 11
Questrade is donating one million meals to Food Banks Canada in response to growing demand for their services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The online brokerage firm is also asking Canadians who are able to consider making a donation of their own via a video developed by No Fixed Address that is running on conventional and specialty TV channels across the country. “There’s no more important investment, than in one another,” says the video.
“We hope our contribution will help the most vulnerable fellow Canadians, who even before the COVID-19 crisis were making more than one million visits a month to food banks across the country,” said Questrade president and CEO Edward Kholodenko. “With one third of food bank users being children, there are countless families who need our help now more than ever to simply meet their basic daily needs. We are fortunate to be able to help.”
Auto brand Mini Canada is hosting a series of virtual get-togethers for enthusiasts who are unable to get-together in person during the COVID crisis.
Starting today and running through May 31, the “Mini virtual meet-ups” will feature two to three hours per week of virtual events, classes and activities built around everything from donut making to haircare 101 to a Netflix screening party.
It will also feature a segment called “Cooper’s Corner,” featuring Charlie Cooper, the grandson of Mini founder John Cooper, in conversation with people important in the brand’s history—including Frank Stephenson, the car designer who played a key role in the brand’s 2001 reboot, and rally driver Carlos Sainz.
If you’re missing the NHL playoffs and tired of watching rebroadcasts of Leafs and Habs games, Scotiabank has some fresh hockey-related content for you.
The company announced that Hockey 24, its 90-minute documentary chronicling a day in the life of hockey in Canada, will air commercial-free on Sportsnet on May 24. It was originally slated to debut at the HotDocs film festival. Conceived edited and produced by content marketing company The Mark, the movie documents a single day in the life of Canadian hockey, combining footage shot by 25 documentary film crews and filmmakers with home videos and photos submitted by Canadians.
“During this time of physical distancing, Canadians are missing many things—hockey and the NHL playoffs arguably the most obvious—and Hockey 24 has allowed us to share inspiring stories from across the country that demonstrate the impact sport has on our day-to-day life,” said Scotiabank’s chief marketing office Clinton Braganza in a release.
Consumer engagement agency Match Marketing Group has added to its North American creative leadership with two senior creative hires.
Gary Westgate (photo) is the new vice-president, head of creative for Canada. His career has included a stint as VP, creative director with JWT Toronto and ECD roles at both Innocean Worldwide and Taxi. He reports into Eric Moncaleano, Match’s newly appointed ECD, North America.
Ace Bakery said it with flours this Mother’s Day. Working with Toronto agency Union, the bread brand is running a social media contest offering Ontario residents the ability to win one of the rarest of commodities during the COVID pandemic: flour.
“Tulips are a dime a dozen,” said the Weston Foods Canada brand announcing its “bouquet of flours” giveaway, which was running on its Instagram and Facebook feeds through Monday. “This Mother’s Day, flour is on every mom’s list.”
People can enter for a chance to win 1kg of its unbleached flour and 1kg of its whole wheat flour. People have taken up baking en masse during the COVID lockdown, which has resulted in flour shortages all across the country.
