The Montreal Gazette has launched a new campaign from Blueblancrouge that showcases the Postmedia publication’s growing expertise and continued investment in digital journalism.
Elements of the “Digital First” campaign include a cover wrap that presents a Gazette front page comprised entirely of Tweets, as well as print ads featuring headlines such as “Bixi bikes hugely popular!” accompanied by associated Twitter hashtags such as “#green,” “#exercise,” “#lesstraffic” and “#headinjuries.”
A 30-second TV spot, “Who do you blame?” shows a tablet reader swiping through Gazette headlines related to the city’s recent traffic woes caused by deteriorating bridges. After a sentence reading “rusted girder at fault” appears, the reader is shown cutting the first two words and replacing them with the words “City” “Province” and “Feds,” before replacing the entire sentence with the words “Who do you blame?”
Other advertising includes a series of radio ads spotlighting individual Gazette columnists and online banners reading “Montreal’s (fill in the blank) feed,” accompanied by a finger scrolling through words such as “sports,” arts” and “life.”
The advertising drives consumers to the Gazette’s new Words-Matter.ca landing page, an online extension of the publication’s six-year-old “Words Matter” positioning that showcases the publication’s columnists as well as apps for the iPad, iPhone and Android platforms. The site also urges visitors to enter a contest for a chance to win one of five iPad 2’s or 10 Kobo eReaders.
“It is a new way of addressing the ‘Words Matter’ positioning using web language,” said Gaetan Namouric, executive vice-president, chief creative officer for Blueblancrouge. “We wanted to tweak the positioning that we all know and give it a new more digital twist.”
