The Institute of Communication Agencies (ICA) has unveiled the theme of next year’s FFWD Advertising & Marketing Week, as well as a new marketing campaign incorporating print, digital and out-of-home.
Developed by Cossette, the theme for the five-day event at Toronto’s Bell TIFF Lightbox is “Canada Needs You,” with speakers addressing the virtues of risk-taking, innovating and being bold on the global stage.
Jason Chaney, chief strategy officer for Cossette, said that careful examination of previous FFWD events and the industry as a whole suggested an opportunity for the annual conference to address a topic that is on the mind of many Canadian marketers and agencies.
“Both advertisers and agencies are facing what seem on the surface to be insurmountable challenges, and the notion of taking risks, doing something different and breaking free from existing strategies to find new opportunities was a great focus,” he said.
He said that the Canadian marketing industry faces a unique challenge because of its proximity to the world’s largest and most influential advertising market. “We’re seen as an extension of the U.S. market,” he said, which has manifested itself in a tightening of ad budgets and pressure to simply adapt creative produced for the U.S.
Chaney said that a sense of urgency is necessary, both to protect the Canadian marketing industry and Canadian culture as a whole. “We want to have original creative and original thinking coming out of Canada, as opposed to losing that opportunity to globalization,” he said.
The five-day FFWD event will feature more than 40 sessions, keynote addresses, panel presentations and workshops with thought-leaders from Canada and around the world.
Presentations will include an analysis of customers as the starting point for great companies, an analysis of the advances in behavioural science that are changing how brands and agencies are thinking about connecting with consumers, as well as a discussion on the power of “Brand Canada” as a marketing tool.
The pro bono creative campaign for the event features a series of inspirational quotes made by business visionaries including McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc (“If you’re not a risk taker you should get the hell out of the business”), IBM CEO Ginni Rometty (“Growth and comfort never coexist”) and Huffington Post founder Arianna Huffington (“Fearlessness is like a muscle. I know from my own life that the more I exercise it the more natural it becomes”) juxtaposed against a silhouetted head and shoulders shot.
Desiree Creed, the ICA’s director of strategic sponsorships and partnerships, said that the campaign is promoting the industry’s largest educational conference (last year’s event attracted more than 6,000 people) and needs to resonate with multiple constituencies – from post-secondary students, to entrepreneurs and CMOs. “It’s about bringing out the most progressive leaders of tomorrow,” she said.
