Strategy launched this competition with the goal of giving greater recognition to the high quality of thinking that goes into the development of Canada’s best media plans – and encouraging greater respect, particularly in the client community, for the creativity and skills of media professionals.

While media is no longer widely perceived as a dreary, back-office function, it remains, to many marketers, something of a mystery. Anyone, after all, can see where advertising is placed. But an understanding of exactly how plans are conceived is much rarer, outside of the media community itself. Through this competition, we hope to help change that.

Strategy asked agency media departments and independent media companies across Canada to review all of their plans that appeared in the market during the 12-month period ending October 31, 1996, and to submit the best of those for consideration.

We instructed them to prepare a summary for each, describing the plan in detail and summarizing the results. We were not looking for reams of numbers, or charts and graphs, we explained, but rather trying to get at the quality of the thinking behind the plans: what were the challenges and objectives, as presented by the client, and how were these addressed, strategically and creatively?

The judges – all media directors or senior agency/media company executives – were asked to assign each submission a score from 0 to 10. (Judges were not given media plan submissions for clients with which they compete directly.) Their judgments were made on the basis of: the quality and originality of the strategy and the communications insight on which it was based; the creativity and originality of the media solution; and the plan’s effectiveness as evidenced by sales results or tracking studies.

– Best Use of Radio – Runner-up

Agency/Media Company: BBDO Vancouver

Client: British Columbia Forest Service (bcfs)

Media Team: Jeff Berry, Media Planner/Buyer; Bill Fitch, Associate Media Director

The Background

British Columbia relies heavily on the state of its forests. Each year, an enormous amount of money is spent fighting forest fires in the province. From 1993 to 1995, nearly 2,300 fires occurred in b.c. – 56% of which were caused by human beings.

In 1996, BBDO Vancouver was challenged to develop a new communications strategy for the bcfs fire prevention campaign. In previous years, radio was the only medium used to promote prevention of forest fires in the province. bbdo recommended inclusion of community newspapers as well.

The Plan

The media objective was to create timely awareness within fire danger areas, while providing continuity and cost-efficiencies (the client wanted to significantly decrease the media spend, from $553,000 in 1995, to $300,000-$500,000).

The fire prevention season officially opens in April and closes in August. Media support is purchased from May to September. Given the unpredictable nature of forest fires, it would be difficult to pre-plan media support within specific regions.

Radio and community newspapers both have the flexibility required to meet the short lead-times. And both allow multiple creative executions at affordable cost.

From research, it was clear that certain markets had a much higher incidence of fires, and were deemed priority markets.

In those markets, a base buy was purchased to run through the ‘hot season,’ from June to September. A total of four daily 30-sec. spots were purchased to run on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Negotiating early resulted in cost savings of 20%.

For the Vancouver and Victoria markets, the radio strategy was somewhat different.

In previous years, the Ministry of Forests would order 30-sec. radio spots purchased on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, to generate a fire prevention message on weekends, when people would be heading to forest regions. bbdo argued that purchasing so late in the week missed a public already gone for the weekend. To cut back on costs, the agency recommended focusing on long weekends only, with the base buy purchased on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Strategically, radio was purchased to run as close to news as possible.

A partnership was developed with the news-only stations in Victoria (cfax) and Vancouver (All News 1130). With both stations, bbdo was able to negotiate approximately 30% added value, consisting of no-charge sponsorships, on-air interviews and dramatically discounted rates.

The newspaper purchase was made through newspaper groups. A 13-week base buy was purchased with the North Island Group and the Cariboo Newspaper Group. This resulted in the majority of the priority markets being covered for 40% of the actual cost.

In all, 40 newspapers ran one quarter-page ad per week during the hot season. All publications were given small space ads (plug-ins) to be placed when remnant space became available.

The Results

In 1995, 1,150 fires were human-caused. In 1996, as of October, the total was 596 – a decrease of 52% that saved the bcfs millions of dollars in fire-fighting costs.

On the media front, bbdo successfully negotiated a 30% increase in value, bringing the total value of the campaign to more than $374,000, on a base buy spend of $281,000 – well beyond the client’s expectations.