Toronto’s Royal Agricultural Winter Fair has named Toronto’s Smith Roberts its agency of record following a competitive review that began in spring.
The six-year-old agency will oversee consumer advertising, as well as all digital and social media initiatives for the annual 10-day event.
Scott McConnell, who joined the Royal as director of marketing in April after a 16-year stint with Paramount Canada’s Wonderland–most recently as vice-president, marketing and group sales–said six agencies were invited to pitch on the account.
CP+B Canada (formerly Zig), which had worked on the account on what McConnell describes as a “semi pro bono basis” since 2006, was not invited to pitch on the account. The split, he said, was “very amicable.”
According to McConnell, Smith Roberts was selected because of its “very unique” understanding of the equestrian and agricultural communities (agency president Malcolm Roberts grew up in a farming family) as well its experience with both traditional mass media and digital and social initiatives.
“At the end of the day, they just get it,” said McConnell. “In the meetings we had they totally understood the product, they understood where we needed to go and how to get there and showed me very relevant case studies where they had been able to drive attendance or renew interest in a particular product or brand.”
Smith Roberts’ first work for the Royal will debut in late October, with a creative approach encompassing everything from agricultural innovation and the 100-mile diet to equestrian competition.
The campaign’s primary target will be women 25-54 who make family entertainment choices, while the secondary target is people involved in the agricultural and equestrian communities.
Asked if the new work heralds a new creative approach for the Royal, McConnell said, “Looking at what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, this is a very fresh, new, exciting approach,” he said. “My hope is that people who know us will be very excited about coming back, people who perhaps haven’t been here for a few years will realize that there’s something new going on and we are a must-see event, and for people that don’t know us all that well, hopefully they’ll be intrigued enough to give us a try.”
While the Royal’s recent advertising efforts, including last year’s campaign from CP+B Canada, have played on the city-meets-country theme, Roberts said that upcoming work will be “a complete change” from previous campaigns.
“We wanted something that was going to resonate a little bit deeper with our potential target,” he said. “We just tried to capture what is the spirit and magic of the Fair.”
Attendance at the Royal has held steady at about 300,000 for the past few years, but Roberts said he hoped the agency’s “head snap” approach to creative would help boost attendance figures.
Toronto’s McIlroy & King has also been chosen to handle the Royal’s media assignment.
