St. John’s agency takes home prestigious Gold at Canada’s toughest advertising awards show
St. John’s, NL – Target took home a coveted Gold award at last night’s Canadian Advertising Success Stories (CASSIES) Awards show in Toronto.
The CASSIES is one of the country’s toughest competitions, and is the only Canadian award to recognize proven advertising effectiveness. In order to win, advertisers must prove there was a direct correlation between the advertising and the quantified business results.
Target won Gold in the Best Integrated/Best Insight category for its Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism Fresh Air campaign, which brought fresh NL air and creativity to Toronto during the hot, smoggy months of summer.
“Our mantra since day one has been creativity is a powerful business tool,” says Noel O’Dea, President and Director of Strategic & Creative Planning. “We’re all really proud of the many Lions we’ve won for creative at Cannes. But to win a Gold CASSIES, that’s always the best – because it recognizes great creative and great business results. And we love to make the cash register ring for our clients.”
The 2008 Fresh Air campaign included a giant superboard situated on the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto. Over a three-week period, in the humid dog days of summer, the blank white board was hand-painted – by an artist suspended 60 feet above the ground – revealing day by day a little more of what became a 3-D open window through which hundreds of thousands of motorists could see a beautiful NL scene of ocean, meadows and a clothesline blowing in the fresh ocean breeze.
Following the campaign, travel inquiries to the province increased 30%, and non-resident air visits rose by 3.7%. The media buzz generated more than 18,000,000 PR impressions, resulting in publicity valued at more than $2,000,000.00.
2009 was a particularly competitive year for the CASSIES, with entries up by 34% to a new record level. This latest win is Target’s seventh CASSIES award, and the agency remains the only ad shop east of Quebec to ever win CASSIES Gold.
Target also recently won Gold at the Advertising Design Club of Canada show (ADCC), as well as five awards at the Applied Arts Design and Advertising Awards. In October, the agency received a record-breaking 29 wins, including Best in Show at the Innovation Creativity Enterprise (ICE) Awards.
Now in its 30th year, Target is an award-winning, full-service advertising and brand architecture firm based in St. John’s, Newfoundland. One of the country’s top creative shops, Target is one of only eight agencies in Canada to ever win a Gold Lion in the 55-year history of the Cannes International Advertising Festival, and the only East Coast agency to win Gold internationally. Target’s clients include Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, Air Canada Jazz, Irving Oil, Brock University, Scouts Canada, Fronteer, Marble Mountain, Aurora Energy, Ganong Chocolate, and Maple Leaf Foods.
