Grassroots Advertising is projecting big things for 2009 following its December purchase of projection advertising firm OptiAd Media. A purchase price was not disclosed.
Toronto-based Grassroots—which has its roots in the wild posting business but has expanded into guerrilla marketing—began working with OptiAd in March 2008, and has used the company as a supplier on campaigns for Cosmo TV, Smirnoff, the Toronto Raptors, Fido and 7UP.
Last year, Grassroots commissioned OptiAd for OMD Canada’s award-winning “Doritos Collisions” campaign for the Doritos Collisions brand. As part of the campaign, images representing Doritos Collisions’ hot wing and blue cheese flavours—a cowboy and a debonair Frenchman respectively—were projected onto the side of buildings in major markets including Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Calgary. The ads invited consumers to text in their vote for their favourite flavour, with the results played out in the projections. For example, votes for the blue cheese flavour would lead to the Frenchman flinging cheese at the cowboy.
The campaign won Best of Show at Marketing’s annual Media Innovation Awards, as well as Golds in both the Youth and Out-of-Home categories.
“[OptiAd Media] is measurable and environmentally friendly,” said Michael Gillissie, vice-president of sales and operations for Grassroots. “Those two things are important to people these days, and it gives us a strong move in that direction.
“We want to be able to provide [clients] with a package that might dovetail with some of our other offerings: wild postings, mobile billboards, etc.,” added Gillissie. “The mixture of the projections with proximity marketing and street teams, it really does have that wow factor. People will stop and get engaged.”
OptiAd co-founder Adam Crabb is also joining Grassroots as operations manager for guerrilla and new media.
