1972-79 Promotions
Fast Facts:
Campaign: ParticipACTION national promotions 1972-1979
Dates: First decade promotions
Description: A wide variety of promotional materials
demonstrating ParticipACTION’s creativity, reach and success
at corporate sponsorship.
Funding: Variety of corporate sponsors, plus some
funds from Health Canada.
Variety of printed materials (brochures, booklets, posters, etc),
nationally distributed.
OBJECTIVES
- Add to the public awareness being created by the television,
radio and newspaper PSAs
- Create Awareness of this new organization, ParticipACTION, and
Awareness of the inactivity crisis and its health implications
- Begin to Educate Canadians about the type and amount of physical
activity that would be a desirable goal
- Endeavor to create a positive, high profile for the ParticipACTION
Brand, and positive public response to its message, in order to
attract further corporate support and encourage continued government
support.
RESOURCES
Samples of these promotions are included below. All were initially
available in both official languages.
- “The Canadian Movement For Personal Fitness” and
“We’re Talking About ACTION” – These were
introductory brochures describing this new organization.
- Logo Graphic Sheets – Clarified the Brand design and
official colours. This Brand was identical in French and English
(a powerful decision, and relatively unique), created by combining
the two words “participate” and “action”
– both with the same meaning and spelling in French and
English – into a new word “ParticipACTION”.
By creating a new word, we were also able to give it the “meaning
and tone” we wished it to represent. This Brand remained
unchanged for thirty years and became readily identifiable by
over 85% of Canadians, equally strong in both languages
- “Physical Fitness..? Who needs it!” and “Surprising
what you don’t know about fitness” – These were
Educational brochures explaining what we meant by “fitness”,
its components and benefits
 “…the
true north soft and free” – Example of one of the
series of outdoor billboard ads which used humour to attract public
attention. Similar types of humerous messages were also used for
public transport vehicles (“Jog to the rear of the bus.
If you’re like most Canadians it will be the only real exercise
you’ll get today.”) In all cases, ParticipACTION professionally
produced the messages while the space for their exposure across
the country was 100% donated- Tilden Bumper Stickers – Sponsored by Tilden Car Rental
for free distribution by ParticipACTION across the country
- St. Lawrence Sugar Packages – Millions were produced
with the ParticipACTION logo and a message, and distributed to
restaurants by St. Lawrence Company. This helped to raise Brand
awareness
- Eddy Match Boxes – Hundreds of thousands of these “individual”
size boxed were produced with the ParticipACTION Brand and a series
of messages. They also served to heplraise Brand awareness in
the early years
- TD Poster Series and Brochure – A high profile and very
popular initiative sponsored by the TD Bank. The bank commissioned
six, well known Canadian artists to each create their interpretation
of a ParticipACTION scene. These paintings were then used to produce
about 100,000 posters which were available for free from the bank
branches. A special educational brochure “Participate. Do
it your way.” Was also produced by the bank. The bank then
used the same artwork to produce a series of “envelope stuffers”
which were then included – one per month over six months
– in the bank’s statements to its customers. Millions
of these “stuffers’ were distributed and again served
to raise public awareness of ParticipACTION
- “Look Ma, I’m a Fitnik” – ParticipACTION
educational brochure produced and widely distributed by The Borden
Company. It was one of the first ParticipACTION initiatives to
combine the physical activity and nutrition messages
- “Fitness: Knowing and Doing” – Attractive
and informative educational poster produced by ParticipACTION
with funding from Health Canada
- Action Wear – ParticipACTION clothing (t-shirt, shorts,
warm-up suits) made available for sale on a cost recovery bases.
Proved to be of limited success
- “Counter Attack” – A twenty minute educational
film produced by ParticipACTION and sponsored by Sun Life Assurance.
It featured Dr. Terry Kavanagh and his pioneer work in the use
of endurance exercise for the treatment of heart attack victims.
The film was avail free to the public from any Sun Life agent
and widely promoted by ParticipACTION
- Join The ParticipACTION Movement – Brochure promoting
ParticipACTION t-shirts, posters, lapel pin, etc, which could
be purchased for individuals to identify with “the Movement”
- “Family Fitness by Fleischmann’s” –
ParticipACTION educational brochure produced and distributed by
Standard Brands Canada Limited
- “Jogging: Good for you, good for life.” –
Educational brochure produced by ParticipACTION, but paid for
and distributed by radio station CKAC (Montreal) and other Télémédia
radio stations in Quebec and Ontario
- “What’s the matter with Kids today?” –
A booklet targeted to parents of young children. This was a joint
publication of the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education
and Recreation and ParticipACTION. The unique and appealing design
was the creation of Sarner, Young (today’s Manifest Communications)
and Fifty Fingers (today’s Spencer Francey Peters). It featured
the style and actual illustrations from the 1940-1950’s
elementary readers (Dick and Jane) which would be readily recognized
by parents of children in the 1970’s. A suitable technique
since we were comparing the inactivity of today’s children
compared to the active lifestyle of the pre-television generation
- Milk Carton messages – For approximately ten years, a
number of dairies provided free panel messages to ParticipACTION.
As was the case with other mass media, ParticipACTION prepared
the messages while the dairy donated the printing cost / space.
This was considered an innovative new medium (ParticipACTION being
the first to explore it) and literally millions of messages appeared
on breakfast tables over the years.
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