Promotion

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) managed a large number of initiatives  designed to promote the CMF’s mandate, programs and activities, as well as the successful content it supports. Results of key communications actions improved considerably this year with major increases noted for the CMF’s social media community, news subscribers and visits to the website. Furthermore, according to a stakeholder survey conducted in December 2012, satisfaction levels of CMF communications strategies and tools reached a three-year high and increased by over 10.0%.

Promote and Access Canadian content

In June 2012 during the Banff World Media Festival, the CMF launched a new website called CanadaonScreen.ca to showcase CMF-funded projects and to encourage Canadians to discover the variety of quality television shows, games, apps, web-based content, as well as software and enabling technologies.

The launch was backed by a trade press relations campaign as well as television PSA’s on participating broadcasters targeting the general public that started airing in December 2012.

An implementation plan was developed to expand audiences and increase awareness of Canadian content in television, feature film and digital media across Canada and internationally. The multi-tier plan was designed to ensure that Canadian content is a visible choice in worldwide content offerings.

As part of this plan, the CMF partnered with Telefilm Canada and the CRTC to organize a Symposium on the promotion of Canadian films and television programs in Canada and Internationally in Ottawa. A total of 291 stakeholders from the BDU’s, broadcast, television and digital media production, policy departments of government and unions and guilds sectors attended the event and shared their views on how the Canadian industry could work together to promote television, film and digital media content.

As a result of the Symposium, an industry working group was created to develop partnerships and to consider immediate ways to enhance the promotion of Canadian content and current successes.

The CMF partnered with Telefilm to promote successful Canadian content to diverse audiences.

Midnight’s Children, a Canadian feature film slated for broadcast on CBC, was screened at the Red Carpet Opening Night Galas of the Calgary International Film Festival with an unprecedented audience of 1,300 and St-John’s International Women’s Film Festival, with their highest ever audience of 925. These events were opportunities to engage municipal, provincial and federal officials, corporate citizens and the public to focus their attention on the success and high quality of Canadian-produced entertainment.

On the international front, Canada was featured as the Country of Honour at MIPCOM 2012, the world’s leading entertainment content market, with attendance of over 12,900 and an unprecedented 177 articles on Canada from international journalists. Canadian journalists and talent from various television productions were invited to the market to highlight the success of Canadian productions in the international marketplace.

Pursuant to a request for proposals, the CMF and Telefilm engaged an external service provider to assist in curating an extensive selection of back catalogue Canadian titles that could form a library of Canadian content and determine the best options to provide public access to this library.

A branding exercise was initiated to develop a name that captures the essence of “Canadian Content Promotion” and that can resonate to Canadian audiences as well as international audiences in both English and French. Work began on developing a visual identity to be launched in 2013-2014.