RBC‘s tagline for this year’s TIFF is “Proudly supporting the infinite possibilities of film,” and the bank wants festival-goers to know it.
In its fifth year as a major sponsor of TIFF, RBC will make its presence felt with an experiential hub at David Pecaut Square (next to one of the event’s main venues, Roy Thomson Hall), where attendees can get free popcorn, sign up for a TIFF-branded Visa gift card, and watch the finalist short films from the RBC Emerging Filmmaker Competition. The hub, designed by GMR, will be giving away free screening tickets, as well as a grand prize of a $500 pre-loaded gift card and opening weekend tickets for TIFF 2014.
The branded Visa card is a new experiment this year, devised to further RBC’s role as the official bank of TIFF, according to Ann Sandy, RBC’s Greater Toronto Area director marketing and communications. If there’s enough interest, RBC plans to expand the promotion to include loyalty rewards and merchandising. Over just two weeks, the bank has already moved 1,200 cards.
On social media, RBC is running a scavenger-hunt-slash-ticket-giveaway as well as encouraging fans to use #tiff13 and #infinitepossibilities and inviting them to RBC’s three downtown locations that have been decked out in TIFF paraphernalia.
The RBC Emerging Filmmaker’s Competition, now its fourth year, is a partnership with the TIFF Talent Lab to encourage up-and-coming film creators. Sandy said the EFC is one of the most important facets of the RBC sponsorship, which is designed to further RBC’s brand positioning as a supporter of creative media and young emerging artists. This year’s competitors were challenged to create a one- to five-minute short film on “memory,” with the winner receiving $20,000 and $5,000 for the runner-up. Finalists hail from Canada, the U.S., Israel and Austria; the winning film, announced Wednesday, was Christopher Rainer’s Requiem for a Robot.
A leadup campaign featured OOH work by BBDO that includes billboards and bus-stop posters, in-store promotions at RBC’s 200 GTA locations, creative location ads like the full-hallway takeover in the underground promenade near St. Andrew subway station, and streetcars covered in RBC popcorn. The “Infinite possibilities” tagline and bowler-hatted mascot, Arby, featured heavily in the campaign to highlight the bank’s reputation as a major contributor to arts and culture in Canada.
BBDO and media buyer M2 worked on a broadcast and digital display campaign built on the “Infinite possibilities” tagline, a pivot from RBC’s previous two years of light-hearted “Because not everyone has an uncle in film” ads, which featured Uncle Marv the film exec swooping in to solve amateur filmmakers’ conundrums. A theatrical trailer for TIFF screenings will combine different imaginings of the phrase “we’ll get through this.”
