Paul Radford - Metro Today - Account Manager -Breakthrough the Christmas season retail advertising clutter.-Launch the Bell Mobility Christmas campaign by building awareness of Bell Stores as a one stop shopping for all your gifts.-Drive retail store traffic.-Make Bell Mobility synonymous with great gifts that are easy to love and easy to give. BackgroundAs part of a multi-media campaign that targeted the Christmas season shoppers, daily newspapers offered the perfect environment to showcase our family of products and drive traffic to retail locations. However, the main obstacle was that most retailers as well as all of our main competitors, would be present in this particular medium as part of their Christmas sales push. Our objective was to break through the seasonal clutter as traditional on-page ad units would not suffice.IdeaRun newspaper ads that would not be oversized in comparison to the actual publication providing not only a large format layout (centre spread) but also a banner position on the top of the paper visible when reading the entire paper.ExecutionRecently this was made logistically possible as the Metro Today newspaper introduced a new feature never before seen with other dailies; they decided to saddle stitch their pages in order to combat loose pages litter in commuter environments. We could run the oversize pages and the staples would ensure that the extended portion would always reveal the same amount of messaging.The ad was an oversized double page spread that ran in the very centre of the publication, pages 14 and 15; the extension was approximately an extra 4 centimetres. On page 13 and 16, we used only the extended portion of the paper, Metro Today printed regular editorial on those pages to integrate the ad into the paper.ResultsThe result was better than expected - readers of the publication could not avoid our messaging no matter what page they were on - the "extended tab" broke through the clutter.Even in the difficult economic times, the sales results for the Bell Mobility campaign were outstanding. We increased overall sales by as much as 24% - exceeding everyone's expectations.

We are also very proud that a Canadian innovation has been exported internationally. Bell Mobility's December Holiday campaign is critical given the significant sales potential but very challenging with all competitors in aggressive acquisition mode. As such we were under significant pressure to launch the campaign with an impactful tactic in our primary medium that would break through and put Mobility ahead of its competitors.We, in the partnership with the Metro Today newspapers team, identified the opportunity to alter the paper's actual make-up using the "extended tab" concept. This concept has never been executed in any other Metro published country - however, it has now been presented as an opportunity internationally. Specifically, we utilised oversized newsprint for the centre section of the paper which extended beyond the top of the live paper featuring the Mobility message in the protruding banner. The logistics and multiple challenges (bundling the paper sideways not to damage the banner, ordering new dimension paper) were worked out through numerous brainstorms and meetings between the two parties. Finally, Metro Today agreed to publish the "extended tab" piece, a great example of agency/publisher partnership.The concept is very simple as great ideas are, but incredibly intrusive - the readers and non-readers could not miss it. It was like having an ad on every page but only paying for one ad. This submission is special because it not only delivers a media first by altering the actual layout of a newspaper to profile the message but it was done with an international media supplier. The concept is extremely simple in that it exploits a unique attribute of the medium - The Metro Today daily is stapled at the seam - this distinctive characteristic enabled us to execute the innovative concept of the "extended tab".It is a great idea in its context because if you are either a reader or a public transit commuter, the ad was highly noticeable to everyone in close proximity. No matter what page the reader of the publication was on the "extended tab" would deliver its message all round. This visibility was critical during the highly cluttered holiday season.It should be a winner because of its simplicity, its innovation and its sheer dominance of the medium; the concept helped our client to break through the holiday season advertising clutter. It was also a win, win execution from an advertiser/publisher perspective as other advertisers immediately emulated the idea; copying our approach.

Bell Mobility's December Holiday campaign is critical given the significant sales potential but very challenging with all competitors in aggressive acquisition mode. As such we were under significant pressure to launch the campaign with an impactful tactic in our primary medium that would break through and put Mobility ahead of its competitors.We, in the partnership with the Metro Today newspapers team, identified the opportunity to alter the paper's actual make-up using the "extended tab" concept. This concept has never been executed in any other Metro published country - however, it has now been presented as an opportunity internationally. Specifically, we utilised oversized newsprint for the centre section of the paper which extended beyond the top of the live paper featuring the Mobility message in the protruding banner. The logistics and multiple challenges (bundling the paper sideways not to damage the banner, ordering new dimension paper) were worked out through numerous brainstorms and meetings between the two parties. Finally, Metro Today agreed to publish the "extended tab" piece, a great example of agency/publisher partnership.The concept is very simple as great ideas are, but incredibly intrusive - the readers and non-readers could not miss it. It was like having an ad on every page but only paying for one ad.