Marketing Magazine: Alberta gives 3-minute fire warning
From Marketing Magazine: Alberta Municipal Affairs and provincial fire departments launched a campaign today to warn Albertans of the dangers of today’s high-intensity residential fires.
The hard-hitting TV and radio campaign from Edmonton’s RED punches home the idea that fires in modern homes are different from those of 30 years ago when people had an average of 17 minutes to safely escape a burning house. Research shows that with today’s faster burning, highly toxic materials, that time has been reduced to three minutes.
Radio and TV spots warn that it will take seven minutes or more for a fire truck to arrive, but “you have three minutes.”
The tag line directs the public to a new website, 3MinuteDrill.Alberta.ca, that offers prevention, detection and escape plans. The campaign is also supported by posters and informational material handed out at fire stations.
Global TV in Alberta has also produced supporting 30-second public service spots narrated by news anchors offering additional information.
Alana Williams of Red said the agency took an Alfred Hitchcock approach to the TV spots rather than graphically depicting fire and injuries.
“We wanted to approach people on a psychological level, where they are more affected by what they don’t see than what they do see.”
The 30-second TV spots will run province-wide, while the radio spots will run regionally, often after there has been a fire in the area.
Filed under: Campaigns, In The NewsWork Safe Alberta brings the pain
Originally printed in Strategy Magazine (December 2008) by Jonathan Paul
Nothing screams on-the-job safety awareness like a skin-peeling chemical burn. That’s one of the scenarios portrayed in a series of visceral viral executions for Work Safe Alberta (Alberta Employment and Immigration) running across the province into December that aim to make young people savvy about job safety.
The shocking vids are part of a social media campaign with the slogan “Some days are bloodier than others,” created by Edmonton-based Red The Agency, targeting teens aged 15 to 19 about to enter the workforce.
Though it’s similar to a Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) campaign launched in Ontario last year, Work Safe Alberta’s effort was actually in development in 2007 and meant to launch last September.
“All of our learning had come directly from the discussions and testing we did with members of the target audience,” explains Randy Cronin, partner/director of strategy and research at Red The Agency.
Red developed six videos now on YouTube (youtube.com/user/BloodyLuckyAlberta). They are hard to watch, because of the ghastly nature of the workers’ encounters with a forklift at a lumber yard, a shaky ladder at a shoe store, a meat slicer at a deli, a deep fryer at a café and a knife at a restaurant…just use your imagination.
“We’re dealing with an audience that’s inundated with advertising and information,” says Cronin. “Ultimately it comes down to disturbing them to break through their cynicism about workplace safety.”
Cinema ads, interior transit, transit shelters, restobar/workplace posters and web banner ads work with the videos to drive traffic to bloodylucky.ca, which has the look of a kitschy theatre with a Muzak-esque soundtrack. “There’s an undercurrent of humour that lulls the viewer into expecting something different, and that contributes to the build-up to the actual seriousness of the scenario,” says Cronin.
Filed under: Campaigns, In The NewsRED Makes Alberta’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies List
For the third consecutive year, RED Communications has been named as one of Alberta’s 50 Fastest Growing Companies by Alberta Venture magazine. Not bad for an agency that’s only five years young!
Filed under: Awards & Recognition, In The NewsRED Named to Canada’s Top W100 by Profit Magazine
Two of RED Communications’ partners were recently named to Profit magazine’s list of Canada’s top 100 female entrepreneurs. RED is one of only a handful of Western Canadian Companies represented.
Filed under: Awards & Recognition, In The NewsCanadians strike gold at Summit Awards
By Eve Lazarus
Three Canadian agencies won Best of Show at the 2007 Summit International Awards and a slew of others took home Gold for categories ranging from interactive media to training websites.
The Best of Show winners were: Griffiths Gibson & Ramsay Productions, Vancouver, in the Broadcast Category for Delta Irrigation; RED Communications, Edmonton, for self promotion; and Hangar 18 Creative Group of Vancouver, in the PSA category for British Columbia’s SPCA.
This year’s Summit Awards attracted entries from more than 23 countries who submitted work to a panel of 16 judges. The awards are now in their 13th year and are open to advertising and public relations agencies, in-house marketing departments, video production and multi-media agencies, and graphic designers with billings of less than $25 million. The Summit Awards are based in Portland, Ore.
Canadian winners that won Gold include Creative Spirit Communications, Vancouver; Pub point com, Montreal; Mountain Road Productions, Ottawa; B2 Communications, Whitby, Ont.; Blu Concept, Vancouver; BMG Multimedia, Quebec; Phoenix Advertising Group, Regina; and the Adlib Group, Toronto.
Filed under: Awards & Recognition, In The NewsCanadian agencies win 11 Mobius Awards
Toronto’s Cundari Group won first-place statuettes at the 2006 Mobius Awards in Los Angeles, leading a Canadian contingent that took home 11 awards in all.
Cundari was honoured for its “Time to Deliver” television and trade publication creative on behalf of the World AIDS Organization, taking gold in the Charitable Organizations category. The agency also topped the Healthcare category with its “Use It Now” campaign for client Sensodyne.
The Mobius Awards is an international program recognizing creative advertising. Germany led all countries at this year’s awards, taking 97 prizes. The United States was second with 88, while the United Kingdom placed third with 29.
Other Canadian shops winning first-place awards included Arc Worldwide Canada, which took home the Mobius in the Professional Services-Online category and a second-place certificate in the Image Building-Online category, both for the Leo Burnett Canada website “Big Ideas Come Out of Big Pencils.”
Toronto-based Taxi, meanwhile, won first place for its World of Comedy film festival television campaign, as well as a certificate of excellence for its “More to Move” print campaign on behalf of radio station Flow 93.5.
Imported Artists, also based in Toronto, took home first place in the E-Commerce-Television category for its Tiger Gaming spot “The Accident,” while Montreal’s Marketel won a first-place nod for its print campaign entitled “The Games,” for the Quebec Coalition against AIDS.
Edmonton’s RED Communications, Vancouver’s Karacters Design Group/DDB Canada and Toronto’s Chuck Gammage Animation all were honoured with certificates of excellence.
by Matt Semansky
Filed under: Awards & Recognition, In The News