Calgary Farmers’ Market open for winter
By NORMA RAMAGE

How do you maintain people’s interest in a farmers’ market during the cold days of Alberta’s winter?

The Calgary Farmers’ Market is taking a humorous approach with a series of radio spots. Each of the three ads uses a word association quiz, and no matter what winter word the announcer uses, the response is always something sold at the Calgary Farmers’ Market—from blueberries to crêpes. Each ad ends with: “When you think winter, think Calgary Farmers’ Market.”

The campaign, from Calgary’s WAX, also uses billboards featuring summer creatures like a snail, a worm and a caterpillar. To emphasize the fresh offerings of the market even in winter, each creature is on a fresh piece of fruit—though it is also prepared for winter. The worm, for example, is wearing a toque and carries a ski and pole in its mouth.

The ads launched last week and continue into 2009.

WAX partnership

We’re talented too. In fact work for three of our clients has received some well-deserved attention from our industry’s finest creative authorities. The 2008 Annual Report for the Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities was recognized by the London International Awards, STEP magazine, and Coupe magazine’s International Design and Image Awards Annual. The 2007 Annual Report for Anderson Energy received nods from Graphis, BlackBook AR100, the Advertising & Design Club of Canada and Applied Arts, while the 2007 Enbridge employee Annual Report will appear on the glossy pages of Coupe, BlackBook AR100 and the Advertising & Design Club of Canada.

Click here to read the press release.

WAX partnership

Although we weren’t physically there to actually rub shoulders with anyone, WAX staff did get to rub shoulders with a silver winged-statuette – compliments of our 2008 Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities Annual Report – which was conveniently mailed to our WAX office earlier this week.

From Marketing Daily (November 18, 2008)
Canadian agencies won seven gold and six silver statues at last week’s 2008 London International Awards.

Leading the pack was Grey Canada, which won three golds in the radio category for Crown Royal’s Fathers Day-inspired “noble spirit” ads. “This is the first major award we’ve won under the new leadership and platform; it’s a start of things to come,” said Jonathan Careless, associate creative director at Grey Canada, where Ann Nurock took over as president in May.

Each radio spot was a monologue celebrating the fathers who sacrificed something for their children, whether it was driving a son to hockey practice at the crack of dawn or helping a daughter move into her first apartment.

Tribal DDB’s “sexy Subaru” website, where consumers can run a virtual photo shoot with the Subaru Forester and a sumo wrestler model, scored the agency a gold in the digital media category.

Ogilvy & Mather earned a gold award in the integrated media category for its “ ‘New’ Diamond Shreddies” campaign, which featured video, TV spots, a website, outdoor, print and packaging redesign, while GJP received a gold in environmental design for its work on waxing studio Down Below.

In the print category, BBDO Canada won a gold for “fat bear,” in which an overfed grizzly digests all five passengers served up in the spacious Jeep Wrangler.

Taxi won silver in television and cinema for its retro-styled Viagra spots, while Y&R earned silver for the acrobatic dance troupe that transformed into a human Ford. Doug agency nabbed silver as well for a Worldwide Short Film Festival spot.

John St.’s “incentive envelopes” for recruiter Gary Rudson earned the agency a direct mail silver.

Calgary shop WAX won silver in the design category for the Calgary Society for Person’s with Disabilities’ 2008 annual report. Zync Communications earned silver in the use of copywriting category for the vignettes on the stationary it created for Bretenic Limited.

Keeping with annual tradition, the team at WAX recently got together at the Calgary Drop-In Centre to prepare and serve dinner to those in need. And quite a feast it was, with a healthy portion of delicious oven-baked chicken, macaroni with vegetables and cheese, side of herbed carrots and a buttered roll for all. With smiles on faces and hearts on sleeves, there’s no question we’d do this again a thousand times over.

WAX partnership