Walter Levitt and Sabaa Quao have made their careers by creating marketing and branding campaigns. Now they are starring in one promoting Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport.
Levitt, Quao and four other “real-life passengers” share their love for the airport in the eight-week, print, TV, digital, radio and OOH campaign for PortsToronto, which operates the airport on Toronto Island.
In one spot, Levitt—who lives in Toronto but, as the CMO for Viacom’s Comedy Central, flies every Monday to New York City for the workweek—praises the convenience of getting to his SoHo office and says the staff at Billy Bishop “seems happier than the staff at any other airport.” In another, Quao, co-founder and president of content marketing firm /newsrooms, says he travels often to Boston, New York and Montreal, and he loves Billy Bishop because “It is intimate, stylish and easy.”
The campaign was developed by Toronto agency Loopmedia. Starting with a tagline supplied by PortsToronto—“It’s My Airport”—Loopmedia wanted to find real people who could express their appreciation for the airport in their own words. They identified people in social media who had, of their own accord, posted nice comments about the Billy Bishop experience.
“This was finding these genuine advocates [of the airport] who have already said positive things before they knew what we were doing and then delving in to find out more about that,” said Loopmedia president Sonja Perovic.
“[The campaign] was built on that enthusiasm and then it was more of a reportage style,” added William Morassutti, vice-president and executive director of content and editorial. The agency spent about half a day with each person at the airport, shooting video profiles where they talked about the Billy Bishop experience in their own words. The agency came away from the shoot with all of the content it would need for the print, radio, digital and TV ads.
Many in the Toronto marketing and advertising industry speak fondly of the ease of getting to the airport and the generally more relaxed atmosphere of a waiting lounge that includes free coffee and cookies. But, Deborah Wilson, vice-president of marketing, communications and public affairs for PortsToronto, said research showed many potential travellers weren’t fully aware of what the airport offered.
“Those who use it, use it a lot,” she said. “The research indicated that there is still a lot of people who don’t know about it, or think it flies to Ottawa and Montreal only and are unaware you can get to 20-plus destinations.”
There was a “huge opportunity” to raise awareness not only about the convenience, but the destinations, the service and the amenities.
The campaign also comes just a few months after a major setback for the airport’s main tenant, Porter Airlines but Wilson said the campaign was in the works before that development.
The airport has long been a focal point of heated debate among Torontonians and politicians, and a vocal contingent steadfastly oppose the airport and the noise and pollution they say it brings. Porter Airlines—which can rightly take credit for the huge increase in passenger traffic that led to the airport’s revitalization over the last decade—had been pushing for expansion to fly jets into the airport. But in the fall, the still-new Liberal government in Ottawa announced that it would not allow that to happen.
Wilson said they started discussing a campaign before that announcement when Porter’s request to expand the airport was still unresolved.
At the time there was a great deal of conversation about the future of the airport, said Wilson. “We wanted to refocus the conversation on the current offering.”
