Denneboom Media, on behalf of their client, Grey Goose, approached The Globe and Mail to help it build brand awareness in Canada. Prior to this campaign, Grey Goose hadn't undertaken any major advertising programs in the country.

Coming back into the Canadian marketplace after a long absence, Grey Goose challenged Denneboom Media to find media partners to use integrated solutions in creative ways to engage consumers more intimately than traditional point-of-purchase store promotions could.

With little creative material of their own to work with and a desire to get the best return on their client's marketing investment, Denneboom Media facilitated a meeting with key media partners and explained that they were seeking a solution for their client Grey Goose that "combined mass with class." In other words, they wanted to reach as many new potential customers--discerning, brand-conscious Canadians--as cost-effectively as possible. This was especially important since the program's expenditures represented a significant portion of the vodka-maker's overall budget for 2007 Canadian marketing.

MSG brought the Discovery Channel, part of the CTVglobemedia network of which The Globe is also a member, in as a partner. The Discovery Channel, along with its sister television stations and associated web properties, had plenty of content relating to the "world's best" travel and leisure that could be leveraged for a luxury-themed promotion.

At the same time, The Globe's readership was a natural fit for Grey Goose, being well-heeled, well-traveled and well-known to appreciate the best in life. To quote just one statistic, Globe newspaper readers are more likely than average Canadians to have spent more than $10,000 on a single vacation in the past three years.

The result was Grey Goose Presents the World's Best, which used a mix of online, television and print to associate the idea of Grey Goose being the world's best vodka with profiles of the world's best travel and leisure pursuits, such as luxury hotels, shopping excursions and culinary experiences.



The campaign ran between June and Dec. 23, 2007. Coordinated by The Globe in partnership with Discovery, the promotion incorporated existing Discovery content into vignettes tagged with Grey Goose branding. These vignettes were aired on Discovery, Discovery HD, Discovery Civilization and Travel+Escape as well as on a microsite linked to from TravelandEscape.ca.

Meanwhile, the television stations' associated websites ran ads driving traffic to the microsite, where visitors also found links to travel-related editorial on globeandmail.com. Between June 4 and July 16, visitors also found a link to a globeandmail.com microsite where they could enter a contest for a chance to win $5,000 towards a dream vacation from program partner Goway Travel. The Globe and Mail ran display ads in its paper as well as web ads on globeandmail.com to drive traffic to the contest microsite.

The Globe also gave the Aug. 11 edition of Travel a "world's best" theme. This 12-page, nationally distributed newspaper section contained extensive editorial about "world’s best" travel ideas, and Grey Goose received category exclusivity in the piece and ran display ads on the front cover, outside back cover and a double-page spread in the centre.

In its newspaper alone, The Globe and Mail delivered 3.2 million ad impressions to adults 18 and older with a frequency of 8.9 impressions per reader. The Globe also delivered over 10.5 million gross impressions online at globeandmail.com, and received 1,643 contest entries.

For its part, Discovery Channel, Discovery Civilization and Travel+Escape generated more than 17 million broadcast impressions to Grey Goose's target market of adults 30 and older, while nearly 1 million online impressions were generated by ads that ran on DiscoveryChannel.ca, DiscoveryHD.ca, TravelandEscape.ca and DiscoveryCivilization.ca.

Meanwhile, the vodka-maker surpassed its overall brand awareness goals in Canada for 2007. What’s more, Grey Goose achieved higher sales in 2007 than in 2006 by including this campaign with its traditional POP and other store-level campaigns. What's more, Grey Goose's Global Branding division cited this program as "best in class," as did the Discovery Channel's global divisions.