Rather than undertake a traditional promotion, we created an event that brought the 'sport' of Cheese Rolling to North America for the first time ever. The 1st Annual Canadian Cheese Rolling Festival took place at Whistler/Blackcomb Mountain on August 16th, 2008. The event included cheese rolling races, cheese bowling for kids, a farmer’s market to sample and buy cheese, and cheese seminars.To promote the festival, we created an integrated campaign including print, transit, TV, cinema, radio, banner ads, and a retail program. Everything drove consumers to www.canadiancheeserolling.ca where people could learn more and sign up to race.

During the campaign more than 12,000 people visited the site in 5 weeks. Over 500 people signed up for the 200 available race places. And on the day more than 5,400 people showed up. In the weeks prior to and after the event, the PR earned an estimated 11 million media impressions. Most importantly, for the month after the festival, cheese sales in B.C. increased +2% while cheese sales nationally (in other provinces) had declined by -2.4%. That’s a heck of a lot of cheese.