Omnicom Canada’s content marketing division Highway Entertainment has entered into a series of first look agreements with Canadian production companies including Digital Howard, Frantic Films and marblemedia.
The deals are built around Highway’s business model of funding content for what it described as “key Omnicom vendors,” both in Canada and abroad. The intent, it said in a release, is to develop “bespoke programming and branded content for broadcast and digital platforms.”
Highway president and CEO Adam Ivers, a former programming executive with CanWest, said the new partnerships have “limitless potential,” noting that the environment for ideas to become reality exists across multiple content outlets.
Frantic Films’ content marketing portfolio includes the NOS Energy Drink Challenge, a four-part online reality series that challenged contestants to turn beat-up golf carts into street racers and using them on a makeshift track, and The Wheels of Change, a long-format documentary produced for Cadbury Canada that demonstrated the transformative power of the bicycle in Africa.
Late last year, Highway announced deals to fund pilots from Mark Burnett’s United Artists Media Group for both Bell Media and Rogers.
In March, CTV wrapped production on a new one-hour reality series pilot called Dream Funded: Let the Crowd Decide, which gives entrepreneurs a chance to earn up to $50,000 by pitching a business idea to 100 consumers.
