Free daily Metro has launched its first national advertising campaign in an attempt to further boost readership and online engagement.
Created by Rethink, the $2.7 million “News Worth Sharing” campaign includes TV, radio, out-of-home, digital, stunts and in-paper advertising.
The ads depict a series of humorous scenarios in which Metro readers are reluctantly forced to share their copy of the paper. In one TV ad, “Page Turn,” a young woman is shown reading a copy of Metro on the bus when a hairy arm reaches over to turn the page.
Each ad features the super “Others want to read it too.”
“At one point or another, we’ve all found ourselves staring at someone reading Metro on the bus and wishing we had our own copy,” said Pema Hegan, managing director of Rethink’s Toronto office, in a release. “We took that idea and ran with it for this campaign.”
To further encourage Metro readers to share, posters along high-traffic commuter routes have clear bins attached to them to encourage readers to pass on used copies of the paper.
A recent study from the Print Measurement Bureau indicated that Metro publications in Montreal and Toronto currently have an average of 2.6 readers per copy.
Metro is Canada’s most widely read free paper, with more than 1.4 million readers across seven major markets. The most recent Newspaper Audience Databank (NADbank) study indicated that Metro was the second most-read newspaper in Toronto with 555,800 Monday to Friday readers (the Toronto Star was the market leader with 963,100) and the third most read in Montreal (338,400 daily readers), Calgary (81,100), Edmonton (68,800) and Ottawa-Gatineau (82,800).
The only market in which Metro was not the leading free daily was Vancouver, where it had 180,100 daily readers compared to 222,100 for 24 Hours.
Starcom Worldwideoversaw media planning and buying for the campaign.
