Petro-Canada has entered into a new partnership with CBC/Radio-Canada to promote the amateur athletes and coaches who are recipients of its FACE (Fuelling Athlete and Coaching Excellence) funding.
The multi-year partnership kicked off with the first annual FACE Summit this weekend, during which 2015 recipients gathered at the CBC’s Toronto headquarters to learn from previous recipients, Olympians and Paralympians, along with experts in areas such as media training, public speaking, social media and personal brand development.
CBC cameras were on hand at the event to capture video that will be used in a branded content series called Faces of Tomorrow.
Petro-Canada, a long-time Canadian Olympic Committee sponsor, has been supporting Canadian athletes and coaches for three decades through FACE, donating $500,000 each year to 50 athlete and coach pairings.
The Suncor-owned company has provided $9.4 million in financial support to more than 2,700 Canadian athletes and coaches since the program’s 1988 inception.
“The big problem they wanted us to help them solve was driving awareness and understanding of what FACE is,” said Mike Armstrong, director of sports and digital innovation marketing at the public broadcaster.
“For almost three decades they’ve been supporting developing athletes and coaches, but the general awareness of the program was lower than one would expect given the magnitude of what they’ve done.”
Faces of Tomorrow will profile all of the recipients of 2015 FACE funding in a dedicated segment appearing during CBC’s weekly TV and online series Road to the Olympic Games as well as through a dedicated online hub. The first segment will air on Jan. 9.
The public broadcaster is looking to attach multiple sponsors to the Road to the Olympic Games franchise said Armstrong, who said interest was strong as marketers look to activate their sponsorship beyond simple brand spots.
“If you look at the Olympics or any big sporting event, more and more partners are looking at how to tell engaging branded stories instead of more traditional billboards and commercials,” said Armstrong, who previously worked as senior brand manager for Budweiser, where one of his assignments included leading the strategic development of integrated campaigns related to the FIFA World Cup.
“I know how this works,” he said. “You invest a lot of money in a relatively short period of time, and you want to look and see how you can amplify what you’re doing during the Games so you get more return on your investment.”
Armstrong predicted the 2016 Summer Olympics would be a “pivotal turning point” for branded content, particularly as Canadian marketers are slashing production budgets and being increasingly challenged from an ROI perspective.
“They will be looking more and more to their media companies to bring content offerings to the table,” he said, noting there is “significant” advertiser demand for content in programming time. “I suspect by the time [the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games] come along, almost every partner will want to be doing that.”
He said there were two to three companies doing highly customized branded content during CBC’s coverage of the 2014 Sochi Olympics, a number he expected to at least double for the upcoming Rio Games.
“It’s pushing emotional messages and telling stories, more so than driving a functional message where you might have someone skip or change the channel,” said Armstrong. “The way of going about commercials is now moving into programming content that is way more customized.”
