1980-86 Promotions
Fast Facts:
Campaign: ParticipACTION national promotions 1980-1986
Dates: Second decade promotions
Description: A wide variety of promotional initiatives
demonstrating ParticipACTION’s creativity, reach and corporate
sponsorship success.
Funding: Variety of corporate sponsors and some
Health Canada funding.
Overview
Variety of printed materials (brochures, booklets, etc) nationally
distributed.
Almost all of the funding for these resources were provided by
corporate sponsors which reflected the growing public awareness
and appeal of the ParticipACTION message.
As a policy, ParticipACTION insisted upon complete editorial control
of all the content of these resources, regardless of the sponsor.
Often other professionals (such as dietitians, medical personnel,
etc) were involved to provide ParticipACTION with factual content.
While prominently acknowledging the financial sponsorship of various
companies / products, ParticipACTION would not directly endorse
any product, nor mention its brand name in any content. The ParticipACTION
Board of Directors established specific guidelines regarding this
policy. This policy did not prove to be a negative in attracting
corporate sponsors who welcomed the indirect association with the
high profile ParticipACTION media campaign and the public popularity
of the corporation. This policy of non-endorsement of commercial
products was also important to ParticipACTION in maintaining its
public service advertising support from the mass media.
OBJECTIVES
Build upon the growing awareness created through the mass media
campaign with more audience targeted educational resources.
- Demonstrate to potential corporate sponsors that ParticipACTION
could reach target audiences in a highly efficient manner, often
involving the endorsement and active support of respected local
leaders / influencers.
RESOURCES
Samples of the various resources are included here. All were initially
available in both official languages. (Some samples are unfortunately
no longer available.)
- “31 ways in 31 days” – Educational booklet
produced in cooperation with the Canadian Dietetic Association
for the March 1985 National Nutrition Month. Funding was provided
by the Dairy Bureau of Canada. Extensive distribution was assisted
by local dietitians across Canada. (Cooperative ventures of this
nature with other respected professional health associations added
to ParticipACTION’s credibility, as well as supporting the
objective of reaching targeted audiences.)
- “Finding the Balance” – An educational brochure
about weight control (activity and nutrition) funded by MeadowLight
(calorie-reduced butter)
- “Your Shoelace…And The Meaning Of Life” –
A “tongue-in-cheek” little brochure which was adapted
in many ways. Sometimes it was used to attract media personnel
to a media conference and was accompanied by a single ParticipACTION
shoelace. The second shoelace would be distributed to those who
attended
- “Green” – A unique promotional piece distributed
to the media to announce (and encourage expose of ) ParticipACTION’s
messages featuring “Canada’s outdoors: The greatest
natural fitness facility in the world”. It’s distribution
was timed to also support the June 1984 national Environment Week.
An appealing added touch was the inclusion in this brochure of
a package of “Forget Me Not” flower seeds as ParticipACTION
sought to “plant” the idea of Canadians using the
great outdoors
- “Your guide to feeling great all winter” –
Educational brochure covering all aspects of being active outdoors
in the winter. The sponsor was CIBA-GEIGY who also made this brochure
available to the public through drug stores
- “The Traveller’s Guide To Fitness & Well-Being:
Walking” – A four page advertising supplement designed
for insertion in various magazines (broad exposure). ParticipACTION
created the content and design while the sponsor was Fleischmann’s
(margarine)
- “ParticipACTION’s Fascinating Fitness Facts”
– A large, highly attractive 1985 poster / calendar designed
for use in school classrooms across Canada. It proved to be very
popular and with the inclusion of a calendar, tended to stay up
in the classroom for the full year. It was distributed to schools
with teaching suggestions for teachers on how they could build
upon the facts contained on the poster. Funding was provided by
Health Canada (Fitness Canada)
- “ParticipACTION Mind Benders” – These were
a series of little quotes and humerous comments about physical
activity that were distributed to radio stations along with the
release of new radio PSA messages. They were intended for use
by radio announcers, while also drawing attention to ParticipACTION’s
messages
- “Fitness: Head On” – This proved to be a highly
valuable and popular booklet, equally relevant to this day. It
acknowledged that most Canadians had come to agree that fitness
made sense. But for about 8 in 10, indications were that they
were still having problems getting started, or keeping at it.
This resource therefore dealt with the ten most common problems
that stand between people and fitness (time, self-consciousness,
old habits, etc). Occidential Life Insurance Company of Canada
was the sponsor of this booklet, as well as funding a thirty minute
film to complement it. The film and booklets were available free
to groups from any Occidential Life office as well as promoted
/ distributed by ParticipACTION. This booklet and the film were
created by Sarner Young (Manifest Communications) who called upon
the expertise of a number of psychologists and motivation experts
- “Fitness Over Thirty” and “Fitness And Skiing-
These booklets were intended as the first of what was hoped would
be a series of booklets available for sale in Safeway grocery
stores. Canada Safeway provided the funds for development and
printing, and then made the booklets available for sale in its
stores throughout Western Canada. Unfortunately sales were modest
and the series was not continued
- Grocery Bags – As part of its support for ParticipACTION,
Canada Safeway printed messages on its millions of grocery bags.
This was another form of “mass media” exposure subsequently
adopted by other non-profit organizations
- “Kellogg’s Great Shape Fitness Guide” –
An educational booklet addressing physical activity and nutrition,
prepared for ParticipACTION by lead authors Gordon Stewart and
Barbara Davis. In addition to its practical educational information,
it also contained a useful “calorie calculator”. This
publication was funded by Kellogg’s and prominently promoted
on the panels of its Special K cereal. Special K users could order
the booklet from Kellogg’s for a modest fee
- The Measure of Fitness” and “The Measure of Energy”
– These popular Leader Resource Kits were developed by ParticipACTION
and funded by Metric Canada, the agency established to help introduce
metric measurements to Canadians. The highly informative information
for both fitness leaders and their program participants obviously
made use of metric measurements. To help “teach people the
basic facts about fitness”, the Kits included teaching ideas
for leaders and a series of handout sheets for duplication and
distribution to each program participant. It also included a poster.
Both publications were initiated by Dr. Bryce Taylor, former Dean
of Physical Education at York University and long time supporter
of ParticipACTION, who was then Chairman of the Personal Health
Care Sector Committee of Metric Canada. Content was supplied by
fitness leaders such as Donald Newton (CAHPERD representative),
Peter Elson (Fitness Consultant), Joyce Gordon (Fitness Ontario)
and Marty Snelling (Toronto YMCA)
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