Canadian undercover cop drama Played is getting a starring role in CTV’s fall TV media campaign.

Aimed at CTV’s core adult 18-to-49 and 25-to-54 audiences, the campaign focuses on CTV’s new fall series, most notably Played and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Alanna Barkley, senior director, marketing, conventional and news, Bell Media Agency, says that CTV chose to focus on Played because it’s a series that is expected to perform well in the Thursday 10 p.m. slot after Grey’s Anatomy. The focus on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was an obvious choice, given the current popularity of superheroes.

Played debuts Thursday Oct. 3 at 10 p.m. (watch CTV’s promo trailer here), while Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. launched on Tuesday Sept. 24 at 8 p.m. to a total of 2.7 million viewers.

Built around the “Amazing” tagline CTV rolled out at its upfronts this spring, the campaign uses primarily Bell internal media assets, including TV spots across all Bell properties, digital ads and takeovers of the CTV website for specific series on their premiere dates, mobile ads and radio spots.

Barkley says radio plays a much larger role in this fall’s campaign because Bell now has a wider variety of radio properties at its disposal. She adds that is has also proven to be an effective medium for reminding potential viewers of what’s on TV as they drive home from work.

The campaign is also supported by a heavy external buy, with OOH in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. The OOH strategy in Toronto includes TTC car wraps and QR code and NFC-enabled ads that activate special promos when scanned or tapped, a tactic that Barkley says CTV has never used in past campaigns. The external buy also included a YouTube homepage banner promoting Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Barkley says that digital is also starting to play a larger role in CTV’s fall TV campaign as more viewers turn to digital as a medium to watch TV, or to augment the TV experience.

She adds that the fall TV campaign continues to be the largest media spend for CTV, given that there’s so much big programming returning or premiering.

The campaign will be in market for another four weeks.

From Media in Canada