Astral Television and Corus Entertainment are running a national campaign to celebrate the launch of HBO Canada, which debuts Oct. 30.
Domenic Vivolo, senior vice-president of marketing and sales for Astral Television Networks, said the campaign is designed to notify Canadians that the service is now available in this country. “Canadians already know what HBO is,” he said. “Our job is to let people know it’s coming to Canada.”
HBO will be offered as part of the subscription to Astral’s Movie Network (in Eastern Canada) and Corus’ Movie Central (in Western Canada).
HBO is using bold, simple statements like “It’s Here,” “Get It” and “Hello” for the targeted print, radio, television, online and out-of-home advertising as well as radio promotions.
While many HBO shows, like Entourage and Californication are already available in Canada on the Movie Network and Movie Central, the HBO brand has never been available in Canada.
“The brand is bigger than the programming,” Vivolo said. “The programming is the product of the brand.”
“The HBO Canada launch is one of the most comprehensive campaigns in Movie Central history, utilizing mass media along with all of our Corus Entertainment assets,” said Jim Johnson, vice-president, marketing, premium TV, Corus Entertainment.
The creative concept was developed by in-house at The Movie Network in consultation with Movie Central’s marketing team.
Four print executions highlight key programs that will be available on HBO Canada: Real Time with Bill Maher, the comedy special Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger, Curb Your Enthusiasm or Entourage.
The 30-second TV spot is a montage of various HBO programming clips, characters and personalities reacting to the launch of HBO Canada. All elements direct consumers to HBOcanada.com.
The first part of the campaign was a 30-second radio spot, which debuted last week. The TV spot began a six-week run on Global’s television properties on Monday. Print, out-of-home, radio, theatre and online ads will follow.
Though broadcast was the primary focus of the media buy “we spent enough weight in all [media] to break through in each one,” said Vivolo.
In-theatre spots will begin airing in selected theatres on Oct. 20, while newspaper ads will drop on Oct. 28 and banners will go up on properties like Yahoo Canada, MSN and Facebook.
Transit advertising and a street team initiative will begin right before the Oct. 30 launch date.
