CTV/Rogers unveil "BELIEVE in 2010" ad campaign with music by Howard Shore

[mr.x]

Watch the ads and news clips about the campaign here:
http://watch.ctv.ca/news/top-picks/believe-in-2010/#clip126746



New ads to make Canadians 'believe' in 2010 athletes

Updated Mon. Jan. 5 2009 11:00 AM ET
CTV.ca News Staff

Canadians will "fall in love" with the personalities of their 2010 Olympic athletes as they learn more about their drive, their passion and their commitment to sport, says the president of Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium.

"Our athletes are poised for success, they're so strong and we want to make them household names," Keith Pelley, consortium president told CTV's Canada AM on Monday, when describing the face of the new advertising campaign that seeks to introduce these athletes into Canadian households in the coming weeks and months.

"We want you fall in love with them way before February 2010."

The BELIEVE ads, which are airing on CTV now, are narrated by veteran actor Donald Sutherland and are set to the music of Howard Shore -- the Oscar-winning composer who wrote the music for the acclaimed Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

Their theme is for Canadians to believe in their amateur athletes and the ads tell the stories of how these athletes build their lives around their Olympic dreams.

One of the new ads, which aired on Canada AM on Monday, tells the story of downhill skier Jan Hudec -- a Czechoslovakian-born Canadian athlete who "trains eight hours a day, 11 months a year because no Canadian has ever won gold on Canadian soil."

In the ad, Hudec, 27, speaks directly to viewers, telling them about what life Canada has brought him as well as his own Olympic dream.

"I believe in Vancouver, I could be the first," Hudec says. "Do you believe?"

Hudec's ad is one of the first to hit the airwaves, along with a profile of Mellisa Hollingsworth, who won bronze in skeleton in the 2006 Olympic Winter Games in Torino.

Next up will be spots on Canadian figure skating champion Patrick Chan as well as Team Canada forward Gillian Apps, a member of Canada's top women's hockey squad when it won gold in 2006.

At least a dozen ads will be broadcast.

Pelley said the ads are only the first step the consortium will take to promote Canada's amateur athletes -- and presumed future medal winners -- prior to the start of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

"This is like phase one of six phases to really build the profile of the athletes, to really believe that these games can link the country together," he told Canada AM.

Pelley predicted that "2010 is going to be the biggest thing that this country has seen."

The BELIEVE campaign will also produce a number of short IDs that will highlight the names of 15 athletes along with their sport, in order to raise their individual profiles with viewers prior to the start of the games.

Speed skaters Jeremy Wotherspoon and Denny Morrison, figure skaters Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, alpine skiers Eric Guay and Britt Janyk, freestyle skier Jenn Heil, skeleton racer Jon Montgomery and snowboarder Maelle Ricker are among the athletes to be included in the BELIEVE IDs.

The 2010 Olympic Winter Games will be held in Vancouver from Feb. 12-28, 2010.

[johnjimbc]

I'm impressed. Look like top-notch quality, and I do like how they focus on the athlete's stories.

[mr.x]

According to the Toronto Star, CTV-Rogers will be charging advertisers "more than four times what CBC was selling during the last Winter Games in Turin, Italy." This is extraordinarily high considering normally the ad prices are only doubled in the host country.

And why the high prices? Well:

One is that the consortium needs to recoup the $150 million (U.S.) it paid for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics. Not only was that a Canadian record, but it was also more than $50 million higher than the losing bid by rival CBC.

The general consensus in the business was that the CTV-Rogers group had overestimated CBC's sealed bid and overpaid badly for the Games. The Vancouver rights, for example, are more than three times the $28 million CBC paid for Turin.

http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/562805







The advertisers think quite differently:

But advertisers say the consortium is dreaming if it thinks it can command big dollars in these gloomy economic times.

"It's a perfect storm and CTV is getting caught in it," says one ad buyer, who requested anonymity.

Can a company like General Motors, which is counting on a multi-billion-dollar government bailout to stay alive, afford to pay the high Olympic price tag when it's not even sure it will be in business a year from now?

``A lot of those decisions are made now, which could hurt CTV and Rogers badly," said Paper.

Pelley says the media consortium is days away from completing major ad deals and that he doesn't expect any problems in meeting revenue goals. But one industry source said that at least one national sponsor has already asked the consortium to drastically lower its asking price.

[Metro-One]

I believe in Harvey Dent.

[dreambrother808]

I believe in Harvey Milk.


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