What can be more Canadian from a NHL standpoint than Sidney Crosby and Tim Hortons? Crosby was joined by fellow Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia native Nathan MacKinnon at a nearby Dartmouth Tim Hortons drive-thru location.
Crosby and MacKinnon were clearly better on the ice than serving ice(d) coffee. The NHL duo were seen in a later commercial trading NHL cards, also available at Tim Hortons.
The demographics are covered since Crosby is a veteran despite the baby face and MacKinnon is a young player.
This ad was particularly prominent in the 2015 NHL Center Ice free preview period last month.
Canada Post was promoting a service called Flex Delivery where you can get your packages delivered to any post office. In the ad, we see a young woman at home, visiting a friend, and on vacation. When she is on vacation, she clearly is in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.
Canada Post has had a few bad years, especially with the community mailboxes. The new government has stepped in to halt those community mailboxes, but the organization can still use plenty of help, in part due to services such as Flex Delivery.
This is a great idea especially if you travel a lot.
The creepiest ad, but still funny, was the way Wendy's is selling its Bacon Portobella Mushroom Melt. The burger is sold in a sexy way with untold emphasis on the brioche bun.
The theme is a bit silly but cool is that Canadians are not as uptight about sex. And unlike Carl's Jr. in the States that uses models in bikinis to sell burgers, Wendy's Canada is more classy and more fun about selling its burgers.
We should note that the ad above is NOT the actual ad that has been running but is close in theme and words and with the same actors.
This cute Scotiabank commercial features a girl giving her old hockey equipment to her younger brother, going through each item and its impact in her success. The brother embraces all this amazing equipment but balks at the pink mouthguard, telling his sister that he'll get one of his own.
Along with The 5th Season, Scotiabank has been good at showing that girls play hockey, too. In a country that is the home of the best women's team in the world, a nice reminder that you need girls to play so that women can play.
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-- Elliotte Friedman and Christine Simpson shot a Sportsnet promo with Henrik and Daniel Sedin. The cafeteria setting reminds us of ESPN ads in the States. The subject is about passing and assists. Daniel asks for the salt, and when Friedman goes to pass the salt, Henrik comes along and says, "Only I pass to my brother."
Click here for the closest we could come to finding the video. The first few seconds are cut off but you get the idea. Thanks to Twitter @JovanHeer for posting the video online.
-- Fallsview Casino has amusing ads. The latest was a guy caught outside his hotel room door with his robe stuck in the door. People walk by being completely impressed in a subtle sexual manner. We then see he is wearing a Fallsview Casino shirt. Ads such as this and the Wendy's commercial are likely to be seen in Canada but not in the United States. Subtle and sexy is not something Americans, as a whole, can get away with doing.
-- McDonald's Canada is promoting its 2 new breakfast wraps. One of the wraps contains kale … and feta, 2 ingredients not normally associated with fast food. The wrap also comes with scrambled eggs, presumably from fresh-cracked eggs.
-- Chicken was a theme for Harvey's, Swiss Chalet, KFC, and A&W. Harvey's talked about 8 million ways to do chicken with different sandwiches and combos of condiments. Swiss Chalet had chickens partying since the restaurant is now offering rotisserie beef as well as chicken. That theme is a variation of cows happy that people were eating Chick-Fil-A in the States.
A&W was promoting its chubby chicken burger, noting the naturalness of the chicken. "Chubby chicken" is an odd name, but the chicken, when not sold as a burger, is called chubby chicken. You would think people wouldn't be reminded of what can happen when you eat the chicken, i.e., becoming chubby.
KFC promoted its popcorn chicken poutine bowl, one of 5 fill-up bowls for $5. In the States, we've seen these $5 bowls but the idea of a poutine bowl is a lot more tempting and relevant in Canada.
-- Manitoba tourism was aimed at Manitoba and Saskatchewan on TSN3 with the polar bear tourism ad where the bear comes up to the vehicle. There was an Whistler tourism ad that ran during a Calgary game.
The preview started before the election was over. We saw the Hazel McCallion Liberal Party ad during TSN3 on October 16 in the Winnipeg vs. Calgary game.
The ad called out Harper's deception, implying that Trudeau would cut income splitting for seniors. Getting a senior, long-time Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, was brilliant.
This ad is worth watching again, even though the election is now over.
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videos credit: Tim Hortons; Canada Post; Wendy's Canada; Scotiabank; Liberal Party of Canada
photo credit: McDonald's Canada
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