Optimum West

Back-to-back wins prove Canadians love Shark Club

(Grande Prairie, AB) - Shark Club is proud to announce that it has been named the Best Sports Bar in Canada for the second year in a row.  Shark Club came out on top in an online poll, held by Rogers Sportsnet, which allowed viewers from across the country to vote for their favourite watering holes.  Shark Club was selected from competing sports bars from coast to coast, and garnered a record number of votes to be named Canada’s Best. 

In claiming the title, Shark Club beat out four other finalists, with its winning entry from Grande Prairie, Alberta.  Shark Club is the only sports bar to win the contest twice, and is particularly pleased with having won consecutively.  The 2008 challenge marked the fourth year of the Canada’s Best Sports Bar competition.
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Challenge

• In preparation for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Own the Podium - 2010 set the target for Canada to place in the top three medal  winners at the 2010 Paralympic Games. This placed added emphasis on the Canadian Paralympic Committee to recruit more Paralympic  athletes for 2010, and to encourage all Canadians with physical disabilities to become involved in winter sports.

Solution

• In order to determine the direction the campaign should take, Optimum facilitated discussion sessions with members of the disabled community, current athletes and coaches, rehab centers and disability organizations in Calgary, Ottawa and Vancouver. Key findings from these sessions were the need for development of effective tools to communicate the Paralympic Movement message, and the directive to showcase the ability of disabled athletes rather than the disability.
• With this feedback in mind, a powerful call to action to ‘Feel the Rush’ was developed as the overall impetus for the campaign. A dedicated section on the CPC website, (www.paralympic.ca/feeltherush), was built to act as the hub of the campaign, where potential athletes can learn more about the Paralympic Movement and locate a local sport opportunity. Along with the website, the Cossette team developed a Winter Paralympic promotional video and supporting material for distribution in schools and rehab facilities.
• The Paralympic Winter Sports Awareness Campaign was launched at a news conference in Vancouver, where media and attendees alike heard inspirational speeches by Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and current Paralympic athletes. The launch event was supported by a national media relations campaign conducted by the Optimum offices in Vancouver and Montreal.

Results

• In the two days following the announcement, 94 hits were recorded in print and broadcast media from across the nation reaching a population of over 11 million people.
• Coverage resulting from the news conference launch included the front page of the Vancouver Sun, CTV News, a three minute segment on SRC (CBC French Television), as well as a number of commuter papers, radio stations and multicultural television stations.
• Athlete recruitment success is difficult to determine at this early stage, however there was an average increase of 336 per cent in total hits and 37 per cent in unique visitors to the paralympic.ca/feeltherush website in the three weeks following the initial campaign launch.
• Optimum won two communications awards for this campaign: Awards of Excellence in Marketing Communications at both the 2006 National Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) Awards and the 2006 International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Blue Wave Awards.
• The Canadian Paralympic Committee and its funding partners have been so pleased with the success of the ‘Feel the Rush’ campaign to date, that they have recently engaged Optimum to create and implement a communications plan for the next two years that will incorporate summer sports into the recruitment mandate.