The Quebec City edition of Voir stopped the presses last Thursday night to print 1,000 special copies of its Friday edition with a blank advertising space to let artists design unique, hand-drawn ads for craft brewery La Korrigane.
Jean Lafrenière, creative director for Cossette, came up with the idea.
Following negotiations with the weekly paper, Cossette invited various artists and the graduating graphic design class of Sainte-Foy College to create the ads. Artists had three instructions to follow: to write “a handmade ad for handmade beer,” the name of the brewery, and its address.
“Thanks to word-of-mouth generated by our requests to the [college] and artist associations, about 120 people, including several professionals, came to La Korrigane and drew all evening to create 1,000 ads,” said Michel-Alexandre Lessard, vice-president, strategy at Cossette. “We were really surprised by the talent of the participants gathered. As were the clients, who could ask the artists questions and observe.”
A team from Nova Film filmed participants, broadcasting their work on a big screen in real time. Nova also produced a video of the highlights for La Korrigane’s website.
Early Friday, the 1,000 copies of Voir were placed on display racks in the brewery’s Saint-Roch neighbourhood. The 49,000 remaining copies ran a standardized ad drawn by Lafrenière.
“Since Thursday, the participants have been sharing their experiences spontaneously on their Twitter and Facebook pages and displaying the ad they drew. Along with the clients that were there, they become great messengers,” said Lessard.
