TORONTO—When Proximity Canada was asked to sweeten the M&M candy brand (Mars Canada), it took its campaign to the streets.

René Rouleau and Priyanka Goswami of Proximity Canada were on hand at the Canadian Marketing Association (CMA) Awards case study event in Toronto Wednesday afternoon to share some insight about their CMA best-of-the-best winning campaign, 'Find Red.'

The campaign drove people to an online scavenger hunt to gather clues and find the red M&M. Initially, Rouleau was in a red M&M outfit in an attempt to get photographed by a Google Street View camera. But there were too many problems — one being that tourists were stopping him for photos.


So the team asked a number of employees to put up red M&M signs in their windows, which were subsequently captured by the Google cam.

How did Google feel about Proximity using its Street View feature for a campaign? "We had a conference call with Google," said Rouleau, who noted there was a tense silence on the line when the idea was pitched. "They were impressed by the idea."

The winner of the scavenger hunt was awarded a red Smart car and there were secondary prizes. In 30 days, the campaign (print and online) garnered 15.6 million impressions, said the pair, with an average visit of 19 minutes on the site.

While the campaign offered an end prize, "a lot of people just used it for fun," said Rouleau.

Winners of golds in the CMA Awards handed out last November were also on hand to talk about their winning projects. TAXI and Boston Pizza reps told the audience about its Flatties and Drummies Campaign, an effort to boost the profile of the restaurant chain's wings. The campaign won gold in advertising-retail.

Joanne Forrester of Boston Pizza said the chain's wings were getting less than favourable reviews, and the company was looking for a way to make the wings stand out from the crowd. "We tried for months to get the perfect wing," she said.

TAXI stepped in and created the fictitious Flatties and Drummies Professional Wing Critics Association, with a television component and even an official 2011 book from the wing association that crowned Boston Pizza's wings the best.

"The more in-depth and absurd, the more people latched on," said Niall Kelly, associate creative director at TAXI.

The campaign was a huge success said Forrester, noting wing sales increased by 160 percent and have held at a 100 percent increase for a year. "Boston Pizza ran out of wings," she said of the initial response.


Also on hand  was Lorne Simon, representing Toronto Crime Stoppers, along with Todd Mackie, creative director of DDB Canada. The Anonymous campaign took gold in advertising-not-for-profit/fundraising/public service, and gold in pro bono.

Simon said the Jane Creba shooting in December 2005 really drove home the fact that guns were being used on the streets. "People are afraid to speak out," said Simon. "We realized we needed help to get our message out there."

With a zero budget, DDB targeted high school students with the campaign, said Mackie. "They seem to know things others don't," he said, noting students were reassured they would not be exposed if they shared info.

The campaign involved three print ads with suspects trying to hide under hoods or baseball caps, with their identity showing through. A video shows a bandit in disguise trying to rob a store, but he is surprised when the clerk, the customer and everyone outside is also wearing a disguise, with the message that all witnesses are anonymous.

"After the launch, Crime Stoppers' calls increased 33 percent," said Simon.

Other campaigns included the winner of gold in digital-retail, the Just for Laughs campaign from Twist Image. "Just for Laughs festival ticket sales were tanking," said Virginia Magaletta, executive creative director of Twist. The client jokingly told Twist creatives to do some drugs and that would be the kind of site it wanted. "We didn't do drugs," assured Magaletta — but Twist did make ticket sales easier and allowed a connection to Facebook to make it easy to invite friends.


With those changes — coupled with some fun new features like the Just for Laughs mascot 'vandalizing' the screen and the homepage loading upside-down — "the entire experience became a silly, fun thing," said Magaletta. The results were a 300 percent increase in ticket sales. "The client asked for eight [percent]," she laughed.

Also presenting was James Ready Brewing and Leo Burnett for its highly successful Blank Cap Recall Program, which earned gold in direct 1:1 consumer products and promotion-consumer products. James Ready regularly prints messages to customers under the cap but once accidentally printed nothing on millions of caps. To make a positive from a negative, customers were told to mail in their blank caps for a gift from the brewery in return, which ultimately raised the beer's market share.

Rogers Communications and Rosetta discussed its gold in the direct 1:1 business products and services category, a campaign promoting Rogers' mobile broadband products. "We tried to come up with real life situations where you could use these products," said Mike McGovern, associate partner of Rosetta. "[How] any flat surface can be turned into a boardroom."

The Rogers direct mail campaign achieved 176 percent of its sales target.

This was the third year the CMA followed its awards with case studies.