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Canadians and
Americans have a lot in common. But there are differences. November in the
United States means Thanksgiving. In Canada, it means football —
specifically, the Canadian Football League’s Grey Cup final. Canadian
football means three downs instead of four, a longer, wider field, 12
players instead of 11, and a reliably massive television audience that
advertisers are eager for their clients to reach an audience the CBC finds
easy to sell.
“We’ve been with it
for 51 years now,” said Doug Brooks, CBC’s chief marketing and sales officer
for English television. “It’s a Canadian tradition, and even when the league
was going through its tougher years, the Grey Cup was still a good event for
us.”
“In 1997, it was on
the brink,” said the Canadian Football League’s senior vice-president of
marketing and sponsorships, Brent Scrimshaw. But its comeback began, and its
growth continues. “We are finding the right place for our brand to live and
we think we have that. We’ll always be fixing, but hopefully we’re down to
tinkering instead of overhauling.”
But even when
viewership of regular season CFL games has been down, people always watch
the Grey Cup.
“We’re estimating
this year somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2.7 or 2.8 million viewers,”
said Dennis Dinga, vice-president director of broadcast buying at M2
Universal.
“That’ll be higher
if the Argos happen to knock off Montreal.” That number is big by any
standard — one of the biggest in Canada. The Academy Awards is about the
only other broadcast that more Canadians watch.
“The only sports
event that beats it is the Superbowl,” Mr. Dinga said. And some years, the
Grey Cup has done better — 3.9 million viewers at its peak, according to
CBC’s Mr. Brooks. The Stanley Cup hockey finals, by contrast, have drawn
about 1.7 million viewers a game over the last three years.
CBC’s Mr. Brooks
says some advertisers come back every year, offering Dodge Trucks, General
Motors and Mazda as three automotive examples. Canadian Tire returned this
year. The Wendy’s hamburger chain is a reliable Grey Cup sponsor. GM and
Mazda are feature sponsors, paying more for additional perks like announced
billboards at the start of the broadcast, as well as having their names
attached to features like the half-time report, or the Greatest Catches
highlight package, which Standard Life is sponsoring this year.
“It makes the most
sense for automotive; it makes sense for beer; it makes sense for
male-skewed properties,” Mr. Dinga said, citing the most likely advertisers
for the Grey Cup. “Gillette’s in there. It makes sense for the movie
companies that only have a two-week window, because you’re garnering such
huge audiences all at once.” And that audience is surprisingly
gender-balanced — about 55% male, 45% female. The Grey Cup is not just
widely watched, tuning in is a family activity.
An audience that
vast and reliable is not cheap.
“It generates a big
audience, but the rate is high, compared with a regular program, “ said
Florence Ng, vice-president, director of broadcast with Optimedia. “There is
a pretty big premium to go with it.”
How big a premium
depends on a sponsor’s commitment to Canadian football. Advertisers who buy
spots in the regular season games — which average about 350,000 viewers —
pay less for spots in the Grey Cup than advertisers who just want their
commercials in the final. Buy spots throughout the season, and a
thirty-second commercial in the Grey Cup will cost $35,000. Buy only the
Grey Cup, and thirty seconds will cost about $45,000.
That price is
likely to rise, because audiences have been growing for regular season games
and playoffs. Post-season regional finals are drawing more than a million
viewers per game; about 1.7 million for some playoff contests. The CFL wants
to maintain that growth. It’s marketing CFL football aggressively.
“It’s built on
heritage,” Mr. Scrimshaw said of the game’s appeal. “In our recent research,
the one attribute that comes through time and time again — in every corner
of the country it was stressed — was the fact that it’s distinctly Canadian.
The strength of the game is that it’s seen as open and fast. In some cases
they compare it to the other brand of football [the NFL]; it’s faster,
stronger and more accessible. That is the core of the brand”
The WWF’s attempt
to juice up the game — the XFL — lasted only part of a single season,
largely unwatched. The CFL drew several conclusions from that debacle; it’s
better to keep your core product reliable and use marketing to draw audience
— gambits like hiring Shania Twain, herself on something of a comeback
campaign, to play this year’s Grey Cup half-time show.
There’s also a
Lotto 6/49 live draw planned for half time. “Everything we’re doing fits in
and around the game,” Mr. Scrimshaw said. “But we never sacrifice the game.”
“They’re doing a
better job of promoting it,” said Doug Checkeris, The Media Company’s
managing partner. “There has been a resurgence in CFL viewing. We have a
large number of clients who’ll be in there, and that’s good news for them.
That’s a good property, and there aren’t a lot of good sports properties
outside of hockey. There aren’t huge sports properties. But the Grey Cup
game has always been big. It’s always been in the top 10 or 20 programs
every year.” |
