CTC's U.S. Ad Blitz Dubbed Skimpy

Jason Unrau, www.blacklocks.ca
Sponsored Tweets and a $10 million advertising budget are proposed by the Canadian Tourism Commission to promote the nation’s 2017 sesquicentennial. A Liberal Senator described the plan as so meagre it appeared pointless.

“I don’t know where the government is heading with this,” said Senator Serge Joyal (Liberal-Que.). “There’s no structure to rally support. We have so much to share; we have great citizens in sports and culture to carry the message, and it’s such a shame. There’s nobody to carry the message.”

The Tourism Commission, renamed Destination Canada, wrote in a notice it is contracting a private ad agency for promotions of the 150th anniversary of Confederation in the U.S. market. “In 2017 we estimate we will spend a minimum of $10 million on media buys in the United States and between $500,000 to $1.5 million on advertising in our core and emerging markets, depending on the market,” the agency wrote.

“The money is going to be wasted,” said Joyal, who described the budget as “a drop in the ocean” of ad dollars. The largest advertisers in the U.S. spend more than $100 billion a year on marketing, according to the trade periodical Advertising Age.

“The U.S. is bombarded every day by advertising,” said Joyal. “The Super Bowl is an extreme example of this.” Thirty-second TV spots in the Super Bowl retail for US$5 million each.

“Think of what a page of advertising in the New York Times costs” – about $213,000 – “and $10 million is like spending $10,000 in Montréal, which wouldn’t even be enough,” said Joyal. “It’s a drop in the ocean.”

The tourism agency did not comment. Destination Canada wrote its plans include “paid social media and paid search” advertising on Twitter and Google. “Our agency is nimble,” managers wrote; “The landscape has shifted and Destination Canada has moved away from traditional advertising to a strategy that involves working with a number of influencers and media brands to develop content.”

The Government of Canada spent $68.7 million on advertising last year — $27 million of it in television – on health notices, budget promotions, military recruitment and public service announcements.

Joyal earlier sponsored a Senate motion that cabinet appoint an independent commission to oversee all sesquicentennial planning, similar to the $86 million Centennial Commission established in 1963. Observances of the hundredth anniversary of Confederation in 1967 included construction of a new National Library & Archives; a youth travel exchange program with 12,000 participants; two travelling exhibits that visited 655 towns and cities; and $25 million in grants to some 2000 community projects nationwide.

The modest U.S. ad blitz follows earlier Access To Information records indicating Parks Canada aims to save money on the nation’s 150th birthday by signing up corporate sponsors at national parks and historic sites. A memo encouraged staff to “be innovative”; “Be in high demand as a partner,” it said, with “leveraged interest from private sector partners.”