Getting race fans back in the saddle
During Covid, horse racing tracks across the province were closed and Ontario Racing took a hit. When the tide began to turn, we needed to get new and old audiences excited about the sport. As a campaign, Welcome to The Track served as an open invitation for all of Ontario to come enjoy the truly unique sports experience.
In radio, we leveraged the most iconic sonic elements of the sport: the bugle, the announcer, and the kooky horse names. And we developed the idea of “the contextual announcer”: a playful caricature who would play call listener’s mundane activities as they were actually experiencing them — before reminding them that a more exciting alternative was right around the corner.
To help our spots breakthrough, we worked with media and used day parting to run the ads during the windows for actual coffee runs, afternoon errands, and dinner duty. Unsurprisingly, hilarity ensued and Ontarians were off to the races.