BELL MOBILITY WRAPS TORONTO SUBWAY
By Adnews Staff
Toronto-based Bell Mobility began a campaign promoting its Solo cellular phone service yesterday by wrapping a six-car Toronto subway train in a bright orange advertisement. The Solo package is aimed at young Canadians. It offers a choice of four handsets, monthly or prepaid billing and variety of bundled services including two-way messaging, call display and Internet browsing. The Solo Train, which travels the Yonge/University subway line, is a joint effort from Cossette Communication Group and TDI Canada Ltd., which handles advertising within the Toronto Transit Commission system. The exterior wrap displays silhouettes of young people, pictures of cell phones and Solo logos. Backlit ads within the cars and posters on station platforms have also been installed. Bell Mobility is the first advertiser to take part in the TTC's train wrap test program. "Such advertising has the potential to generate a lot of revenue for the TTC. We will be very interested to hear feedback from the general public on this test," said Brian Ashton, chair of the TTC. "Because more than 85% of 15 to 24 year olds in Toronto ride the subway each week, the TTC was a natural choice to showcase our latest campaign," said Sanae Takahashi, Bell Mobility's vice president of consumer markets. The campaign will also make use of two 30-second television commercials, a 60-second cinema ad, as well as full page ads with adjacent one-third page vertical banners in 20 print publications. Also, out-of-home wild postings and campus washroom panels will be used in Toronto and Ottawa. Web banner ads, instant messenger ads and DHTML ads will take Internet users to an online game featuring Toronto Raptor Vince Carter. Finally, a basketball team called the Solo Slam Team will play at various locations in Toronto and award invitations to a Vince Carter event in the fall. The entire Solo promotional campaign will run for twelve weeks.