Optimum West

Challenge

• In 2006, Alcan entered its ninth year as title sponsor of the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. Despite the length of its sponsorship, Alcan was experiencing declining awareness of its involvement among Festival participants and the general public. The decline was associated with the Festival’s 2004 change of venue from the Plaza of Nations, where Alcan’s activities were concentrated in Enterprise Hall, to a sprawling outdoor location on the grounds of Science World.
• Since assuming title sponsorship, Alcan had hosted the Alcan Dragon Den inside Enterprise Hall - a showcase of educational, environmental, recreational, and cultural community organizations supported by Alcan. Each organization offered youth-oriented activities that, over the years, became a major draw for school groups and families. When the Festival moved to the Science World location in 2004, Alcan attempted to reproduce the Dragon Den experience in an avenue of tents, each featuring a community partner’s activities. Post-festival research indicated that Festival-goers did not understand that these activities were being presented by Alcan. In 2005, Alcan tried to solve the problem by bringing all the community partners back together under a large, circus-style Big Top tent. Again, research indicated that the larger, outdoor venue offered too much competition for attention (including free admittance to Science World) for Festival guests to focus on the activities presented by Alcan and its partners. Signage was also a major problem at the new site.
• As Alcan’s Agency of Record, Optimum Public Relations was tasked to develop and execute a plan that would restore awareness of Alcan’s presence and role at the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival to pre-2004 levels.

Solution

• To offset declining awareness, Optimum recommended Alcan revise its onsite presence by replacing the Alcan Dragon Den with an Alcan activity and information tent at one end of the site and an Alcan Cooking Stage, promoting the utility of aluminum foil, at the other. This was a difficult decision for Alcan since its 15 or so community partners had been part of the Dragon Den for several years; for many of them, participation in the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival had become part of their annual marketing plans. However, they understood that diminishing returns had set in for both Alcan and their own organizations at the new site and were supportive of Alcan’s decision to try something new. Alcan’s 2006 strategy gave the company a presence at both ends of the expansive festival grounds and an opportunity to engage more festival-goers.
  • In 2006, Alcan’s tent featured a tradeshow pop-up highlighting the company’s history in China, current facilities, and samples of packaging products made exclusively for the Chinese market. The China Tent also featured interactive elements to engage the public including:
    • a world map ring toss game, illustrating Alcan’s global presence, that invited participants to toss rings onto aluminum pegs to win a prize; and
    • a contest to win a mountain bike by guessing the number of aluminum cans in the belly of Alcanaroo, an aluminum dinosaur.
  • The Alcan Cooking Stage featured an “Iron Chef” style competition (dubbed the “Aluminum Chef” competition) in which student chefs from the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts prepared dishes using Alcan Slide foil as the ’secret’ ingredient. The cooking competition featured performances on Saturday and Sunday with the winner awarded a trophy on the main stage during the Festival’s closing ceremonies.

Results

• Post-festival research in 2006 found that:
  • 83% of Lower Mainland residents were aware of the Alcan Dragon Boat Festival.
  • Total awareness of Alcan’s Festival sponsorship increased to 55% as compared to 38% in 2005. Attendees were also 30% more aware of Alcan’s sponsorship than they were of other Festival sponsors.
  • 70% of respondents described Alcan as an important contributor to the B.C. economy, up 14% over 2005.
  • 71% of respondents viewed Alcan as a strong supporter of the local community compared to 60% in 2005.

• Based on the success of Alcan’s revised programming during the 2006 Alcan Dragon Boat Festival, Alcan decided to maintain the same strategy for the 2007.

Alexcander (the Alcan mascot) pals around with one of the competitors of the Alcan Aluminum Chef competition

A line begins to form at the Alcan tent where festival-goers prepare to compete at the popular Alcan World ring toss game.