In my fast food days, I wanted French fries and onion rings. Most places didn't have onion rings. If they did, the fries were often better.
Harvey's allows you to have both French fries and onion rings aka frings. Both look good, based on the ad that ran during the NHL Center Ice free preview of Canadian NHL teams feeds to start the 2022-2023 NHL season.
The preview was not long: 4 days.
Your humble narrator hasn't spent much time in Canada, because, pandemic. Haven't been to a Harvey's in a lot longer period of time. Poutine. Deep fried pickles. Fries with rings. This is not the Harvey's I remember.
Canadian ads from fall 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview
Canadian ads from spring 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview
This Rogers Communications ad came on the heels of the huge outage in July of this year. A outage so huge that Wikipedia literally has a page devoted to the impact of that outage.
The only thing Canadians can agree on is that the large telecoms (Rogers and Bell) suck at what they do.
Does this ad convince you Rogers (or anyone else) will do better in customer service? No. Do the people in these boardrooms think these ads are great? Do workers fear telling their bosses that the ads aren't that great? Absolutely.
Bad apologies are often better than no apologies, up to a point.
Your humble narrator has severely cut down on French fries consumption during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been especially true at home. The idea of having a bad day and making it a McCain's "fry-day" is cute. Each member of the family has their terrible moment of the day and feels better with frozen French fries baked in the oven. This ad ties in emotions well.
One can celebrate with carbohydrates but do so responsibly.
CanadianCrossing.com territories coverage
CanadianCrossing.com travel coverage
We are a sucker for Canadian tourism ads because the toughest audience of those to see parts of Canada is, well, other Canadians. Some of the Northwest Territories are south of the North of 60. This refers to 60° latitude, ⅔ the way to the North Pole from the equator.
Hockey Day in Canada in the winter of 2020 was based in Yellowknife, a rare look into the territories. They had a contest to win a trip to the north to Whitehorse (Yukon), Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), or Iqaluit (Nunavut).
You can still find trees in Yellowknife at 62° latitude but the treeline is not far away where trees do not grow. The area is beautiful and quite remote.
Love the cleverness of the campaign to tie in stories with the experience of traveling there.
Canadian government promos in the COVID-19 era
Canadian ads from winter 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview
Sidney Crosby and Nathan McKinnon are excellently talented Canadian NHL players who play for American teams. They have become the spokespeople for Tim Hortons trading cards.
They don't speak much. Crosby offers to trade his card of himself to a kid. A guy yells out from his truck once the players are outside. "Hey, McKinnon. Where's the Cup?" McKinnon holds up a Tim Hortons cup. The guy in the truck was asking about the Stanley Cup, which McKinnon finally won over the early summer.
I saw a Joe Fresh ad with mindless models wearing okay clothes. I know Joe Fresh sells clothes but I automatically assume Joe Fresh is a grocery store. Even when I know, I still make that assumption.
We hate gambling ads because they are geared toward an audience that knows about same game parlays. Gambling ads are not trying to get the casual person involved. If you know the world, you are invited.
The idea of a guy sitting in a bathroom at a party, obsessing over how to bet. The bathroom is larger than almost any bathroom you have seen. Suddenly, American actor Jon Lovitz pops into the bathroom. Lovitz is louder than the guy wants him to be. Lovitz points to a bet on the guy's phone and tells him to pick that bet.
We don't normally post ads that are terrible but this one needed attention. Most gambling type people likely don't know who Lovitz is. I do know who Lovitz is (he is very talented) and I knew that was a problem for this ad.
Made me miss Jon Hamm doing ads for Skip the Dishes.
Citytv, a Rogers property, is generally fourth among the 4 major Canadian networks. The network produces fewer Canadian TV shows of note and doesn't offer a national newscast.
Citytv+ allows customers to stream content from Citytv, FX, FXX, as well as Omni. All of this is available for $4.99/month through Prime Video.
Canadians can stream Citytv programming for free, just like Americans can do for its over-the-air networks. Then again, most Canadians can't get Citytv with an antenna.
KFC was advertising its Bacon Lovers Sandwich. I loved what KFC was doing a few decades back. While we are not a fan of the Baconator at Wendy's, that was a sandwich that celebrated bacon. A huge, likely tasteless piece of fried chicken with the orange sauce would take away from the presence of the bacon.
Real bacon lovers will stay at home and make a great BLT to appreciate the bacon.
CanadianCrossing.com advertising coverage
Thanks for checking out our collection of Canadian advertising.
photo and video credits: the companies
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