YTV show to run ad in cinemas

‘They can’t flick the channel,’ says ytv marketing manager Rita Ferrari, looking quite pleased with the prospect.

Feeling adventurous, ytv decided to promote one of its shows in an untried media venue, and as of Dec. 17, the trailblazing five-year-old will be the first Canadian tv network to use cinema advertising.

The 60-second commercial touting the Canadian tween series Are You Afraid of the Dark? hits Cineplex Odeon Cinema screens this month and will run for four weeks, taking advantage of the high volume of young theatergoers over the holidays. The target audience, the difficult nine- to 14-year-old demographic, will be pitched through a suspenseful mini-movie with an unexpected finale – a concept in tune with the series it promotes.

Are You Afraid of the Dark?, a live-action anthology series wherein teens trade spooky tales over a campfire, is produced by Montreal-based Cinar in association with ytv and Nickelodeon. Cinar was also involved in the promotion, giving ‘support, including financial,’ according to Ferrari.

Using the untune-outable cinema commercial to plug tv (even if you close your eyes your feet are stuck firmly to the floor and the great spooky track is going to grab you) is one of those ideas you can’t believe more companies haven’t latched onto… until you consider the resentment potential.

It could be considered a daring gambit – the audience came (paid to park, lined up to pay for tickets, lined up and dropped another $20 for the tubs of munchies and vats of pop) to see a movie. Audiences, some remembering the days of entertaining shorts, are already impatient at the string of trailers and commercials, warnings not to smoke or exhortations to be quiet. And adding a commercial for a tv show to the pre-feature warmup could put them over the top. ‘Oh great, the loop is closed,’ was one disgruntled reaction to the concept. ‘Enough already,’ was another.

Well at least this cinema spot is as drop-dead clever as the rest of the ytv campaign created by taxi, the network’s agency. It uses no images from the tv show and you have no idea what it’s for until the very last line and closing super.

It’s black and white and makes no bones about borrowing from the Hitchcock school of building suspense. It opens on a dark and stormy night, eerie shadows are cast with gay abandon. We are led through a wicked iron gate to a prototypically gabled house where – at midnight – a sound awakes a young girl… The girl wends her terrified way downstairs to find the source, timorously opening the front door with a look of alarm; and there’s this dog sitting there (a suitably dour bassett hound to which the girl gives a great ‘It’s just the dog’ glance). Then the dog startles the heck out of everybody by saying, ‘Are you afraid of the dark?’

The fun spot that looks like a movie trailer was produced by Radke Films. Director John Mastromonaco shot it with dop Chris Holmes Jr. Eddy Chu produced. Jon Hopp of Third Floor Editing cut the mini-chiller and the music was by Ted Rosnick of Rosnick MacKinnon.

The taxi team, headed by creative director Paul Lavoie, consists of art director Frank Lepre, copywriter Patrick Doyle and producer Louise Blouin.

And just about everybody interviewed about the spot ‘does’ the tag line, although it doesn’t translate well into human.

Since winning the ytv account last April, taxi has been producing no-idea-is-too-unconventional print ads for the network, pithy one-liners such as ‘Spot the Puppet’ for Thunderbirds (part of a transit campaign). The game plan is to promote each show individually, targetting each show’s audience ‘where they’re at.’ Ferrari says ytv had approached Cineplex, as cinema advertising was a media consideration they threw on the table in original strategy sessions with taxi.

The idea to use the cinema spot for this particular series came from taxi. Since the tween market is a relatively unknown media-habit commodity, the leap to the big screen when family titles like Mrs. Doubtfire and Beethoven 2 are opening seems a safe gamble. And Ferrari, who will be looking closely at the numbers in the months ahead, could be doing more cinema spots, depending on the outcome for Are You Afraid of the Dark?

In March things could get dangerously creative – they’ve booked exterior transit.