Advertisement

Canadian Olympic Committee’s “We Are Winter” campaign shows off top medal hopefuls in an attempt to boost corporate backing

Andrew Bucholtz

With the 2014 Sochi Olympics fast approaching in the new year, the Canadian Olympic Committee is ending 2013 with a bang. On Tuesday, they released a massive series of videos (which can be seen at the bottom of that page) as part of a new "We Are Winter" promotional campaign to get viewers excited about the upcoming Olympics and keep corporate sponsors on board. The overriding theme is how Canadian winters have shaped the country's top athletes, 17 of which are involved in the ads. As committee chief marketing officer Derek Kent said in a release, “The essence of this campaign originated from conversations with our athletes who all said the same thing: Winter defines them and defines who we are as a country." Here's one of the featured 60-second spots, which shows snowboarder Mark McMorris (a top contender to take Shaun White's Olympic crowns) and skier Mikaël Kingsbury trudging up a mountain while four-time Olympian and 1992 freestyle skiing gold medalist Jean-Luc Brassard reads a portion of Helen Fairbairn's poem, "The Winter Spirit":

And here's another 60-second one (which will be broadcast on the CBC during Wednesday's Winter Classic outdoor NHL game) with 2002 hockey gold medalist Steve Yzerman narrating thoughts about winter over a montage of Canadian athletes' highlights:

The campaign features 17 top Canadian athletes who will be pursuing medals at the Sochi Games, and it includes the aforementioned two 60-second TV spots, plus four 30-second TV spots, a 15-second TV spot and seven longer web-only documentaries on individual athletes. Some of these ads will also be shown before movies in Cineplex Odeon theatres, and their themes will be worked into billboards and other advertising; the COC is also partnering with Twitter, using the #WeAreWinter hashtag and letting corporate sponsors promote tweets from Canadian athletes. As The Globe and Mail's Susan Krashinsky writes, an ad campaign on this scale is a new step for the COC, and there's a significant purpose to it:

The We are Winter campaign, 16 months in the making, adds up to what the COC calls the “largest brand undertaking in its history.” Beyond promoting the athletes who will carry the Maple Leaf into the 22nd Winter Olympics, it has a serious business purpose: to give the COC more prominence, and in turn, to bring value to the companies that have sponsored the organization and the Canadian team. ...

“The size of the campaign has increased dramatically,” compared with COC advertising during previous games, chief marketing officer Derek Kent said, while giving The Globe a sneak peek at the ads late last week.

The investment represents a shift in thinking for the COC in recent years, he said. In the past, a sponsorship deal with the COC gave an advertiser the right to use intellectual property such as the COC’s logo – the Olympic rings with the Maple Leaf above them. Now, however, the committee is doing more advertising itself in the belief that strengthening its brand will lead to a better value proposition when it is pitching itself to potential corporate sponsors.

“In Vancouver, we saw that Canadians got behind the team in ways we never saw before,” Mr. Kent said. “But it is difficult to renew sponsorships following a home-soil Games.”

Knowing this campaign was in the works was a way for the COC to tell prospective partners such as BMW, adidas and Oakley – all new Olympic sponsors this year – that it would be providing more marketing support to them. In January, the committee announced its biggest new sponsorship deal, signing Canadian Tire Co. Ltd. as a top tier “premier national partner.”

“The COC’s advertising has not always successfully featured athletes the way they’ve been doing it in London and now going into Sochi,” said Duncan Fulton, senior vice-president of communications and corporate affairs at Canadian Tire and chief marketing officer for its FGL Sports division, which includes Sport Chek and Sports Experts.

The video spots, which were shot on location in Calgary, Montreal, Quebec City and Whistler by Canadian director Henry Lu and incorporate still photography from Chris Gordaneer are well done, and they should serve as a way to get Canadians excited about the Olympics and the country's medal hopefuls. Here's a behind-the-scenes shot of the film crew capturing McMorris in midair:

This campaign is an ambitious undertaking, but it's one that appears to have already paid substantial dividends in getting corporate sponsors to stick with the team after Vancouver. The training documentaries are a nice touch, too, allowing viewers to get to know these athletes beyond just short commercial spots. Here's one on Roz Groenewoud, a 24-year-old freestyle halfpipe skier from Calgary who won the 2011 FIS World Championship and is a two-time Winter X Games champion:

That's an excellent documentary, which shows off Groenewoud training on the trampoline, working out in the gym and hitting the halfpipe; it also has plenty of thoughts from her on how her life's led to this point and how excited she is to be heading to Sochi to compete in halfpipe skiing's first Olympics. With this combination of slick commercials and behind-the-scenes close-ups on athletes, the COC seems to have found a good way to start building excitement for the Games. If viewers embrace these, we might see this kind of approach used much more down the road.

The entire series can be viewed at the bottom of the page here, or on the COC's YouTube page.