Comments Off on FFWD Advertising and Marketing Week Jan 28 – Feb 1
What has been known up until last year as “Advertising Week” has now been rebranded as “FFWD: Advertising and Marketing Week” for 2013. “The underlying reason for the change in name and identity is that the designation Advertising Week no longer fully reflects all that we have come to offer,” Andrew Bruce, chief operating officer at Publicis Canada and chair of the event told Adnews.
The change is very welcome, too! Last year I asked a friend to join me for Advertising Week and she replied that she works in marketing, not advertising. Like, really? There’s so much valuable learning for marketers, too! So I encourage you to check out the schedule whether you’re a communications student or CEO, advertiser, marketer, brand manager or even the manager of your own personal brand (and you are!). There’s lots of opportunities to learn at FFWD from key movers and shakers in the communications world including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! Canada, LinkedIn and so many more. Also, don’t forget about the networking opportunities!
1. “The Most Influential Brand” Study by Ipsos Reid
One session that we’re looking forward to is “The Most Influential Brand” study presented by Ipsos Reid. Maybe it’s Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Visa, Walmart, or YouTube. Or do you have your own guesses? Find out on Friday Feb 1st.
2. Powerful Connections: Making Business Personal
STEVE IRVINE Group Director, Global Marketing Solutions Facebook Canada STEVE IRVINE
3. Cassies
In it’s 20th year, the Cassie awards give recognition to Canadian advertisers for effective performance-driven ad campaigns.
4. Ad Ball 2013
If you’re attending any FFWD sessions, be sure to also get your tickets for the big Ad Ball bash with this year’s theme of Gatsby and the roaring twenties.
Check out the video from last year’s Advertising Week.
It’s hard to choose the best events in Toronto (out of the ones that we’ve covered anyway) as it looks like we’ve been to over 100 events in the past year! Not including events that weren’t photographed. So, here they are – some of our favourite events we were lucky enough to cover in no particular order. And looking ahead, we’re expecting more from 2013!
Brazilian Carnival Ball
The Brazilian Carnival Ball has had worldwide recognition for raising record amounts of funds for charity and for pulling out all the stops to ensure all guests have an enjoyable time as well. Sadly, after so many years, this was the last Brazilian Ball gala. But we’ll remember the large and extravagant indoor parade at the Metro Convention Centre with beautiful, colourful costumes and high energy.
Scrubs in the City in support of Sick Kids
This elegant gala had the most stunning decor we’ve ever seen at the Evergreen Brickworks with giant chandeliers and rose walls for photoshoots. This blew me away topping the experience the day prior at the same venue for the Opera Atelier gala (although that was an amazing evening as well). Good entertainment (aerial performances and Shawn Desman), and of course great food.
Porsche 911 Carrera Launch
The new Porsche 911 Launch at Brookfield Place (Pfaff Porsche followed by Downtown Porsche the next day). Catering was superbly done by Obika Mozzarella Bar (they do amazing tiramisu!) and the premium cocktail bar included 12, 15, and 18 year scotch. This was back in February before we had any camera, but I took a video of the launch with my phone. It’s a bit lengthy.
BMW Downtown New 3 Series Launch
Great food with our first time at an event in a car dealership, and a pretty large, bright venue at that. The drinks were flowing and the food from Food Dudes were great and in abundance. All that was missing was some entertainment but the venue itself was great with friends on a gorgeous sunny day in April. Also flattering to have BMW Downtown use pictures from my point-and-shoot camera in their e-newsletter.
50 Years of Bond Style
Celebrating 50 years of James Bond is an incredible milestone that pretty much anyone with a pulse can appreciate. All 3-4 floors of the TIFF Bell Lightbox were filled with partygoers. Thanks to one of my idols, Spiro of “It’s All Style to Me”, for using our pictures on his website.
The popular event-catering company launched their food truck this summer at 99 Sudbury and it was quite the bash including lots of drinks, beer pong and an inflatable giant Twister game and of course, great food!
Eat to the Beat in support of Willow Breast Cancer Support
A glorious amount of gourmet food and drinks with a female chef at each booth with 60 booths in total. The only complaint is that there wasn’t enough time to visit all the booths. Oh, and also not enough stomach space to try every 60 delicious portions.
Stems of Hope Gala: Heroes Among Us at Kool Haus
Superheroes in costume, plenty of food stations and drinks and old school hip hop including Naughty by Nature! What an incredible event and a bonus that it’s for a good cause, too!
Mercedes-Benz B Scene Launch with Chromeo and Dirty Vegas
This was just about all out fun at the Sound Academy. What else is there to say? The vibe was great! Kudos to Mercedes-Benz for just the right balance of branding without getting in the way of the fun factor!
A Food Network fan’s dream come true as we got to see 5 celebrity chefs (Lynn Crawford, Mark McEwan, Chuck Hughes, David Rocco, and Michael Smith) as they battled it out for culinary glory, hosted by Guy Fieri. What an incredible action-packed night with tons of entertaining personalities! Congrats to Chef Lynn Crawford’s team for recapturing the title back from Mark McEwan! Thanks to Macleans and MasterCard for using our pictures!
Arcadian Court Grand Re-opening by Oliver & Bonacini
What an epic way to announce a venue is back and ready for business! Oliver & Bonacini brought out all the stops for the grand re-opening of the Arcadian. Every ballroom was open at this large, centrally located venue at Simpson Tower above the Bay. It was crowded for this open house with an incredible 2,000 guests in attendance. What an unforgettable night that set the benchmark high for high-end events!
Nelly Furtado performing at Operanation 9: Sweet Revenge for the Canadian Opera Company
Featuring star-studded entertainment at one of the most gorgeous of all downtown venues with the highlight being unique musical collaborations with the COC’s Ensemble Studio and Nelly Furtado and the Arkells. Jian Ghomeshi ignited he joined the Arkells on stage in their cover of “Psycho Killer”. It’s flattering to have Nelly Furtado follow @BestofTorontoTV on Twitter!
The one and only all-electric Tesla S at the new Yorkdale Showroom
This gigantic Yorkdale expansion included many stores but one special store really stood out in particular and that was the Tesla Motors showroom, marking their first step on Canadian soil. What great timing as Motortrend named the Tesla Motor S the car of the year for 2013. The highly-anticipated all-electric super car is now here at your very own Yorkdale shopping mall!
Christian Aldo from The Roncy Boys at BestofToronto.net’s Local Artist Showcase Photo: Yasemin Yenilmez
There was tons of amazing support for the first official BestofToronto.net event showcasing incredible musical talents from Clara Venice followed by the Roncy Boys. As well we had great DJ services by our friends at CubeLogic and too many more people to thank for an amazing first event! We were lucky to hit full capacity at the unique venue without having to turn anyone away. Even the lovely Patricia Juggernauth, weather specialist from CP24 joined us!
Atlantis Pavilions “Key to Atlantis”
Atlantis at Ontario Place showcased all their banquet rooms, each with a different theme: Fire, Water, Earth, Air all featuring their own unique cocktail and food/dessert experience. It was a nice surprise to have Beavertails (outside of Blue Mountain resort) with your own personal choice of toppings. Guests were given a key upon arrival with the chance of unlocking great prizes in each room. A friend of a friend of ours won a Samsung Galaxy tablet that night! Amazing! Thanks to our new friends at Airmagic Special Effects who ended the evening with surprise fireworks and also to Eclectic Events for putting on a great showcase of everything Atlantis has to offer as a premier Toronto venue with gorgeous waterfront views.
Seafood for Thought at the Toronto Zoo
What a unique and interesting place to hold an event and what a great way to learn about sustainable seafood from the Vancouver Aquarium’s Ocean Wise program. Despite the torrential rain at times, the Toronto Zoo graciously gave everyone rain coats, so guests ducked from tent to tent to enjoy drinks and delicious variations of sustainable seafood including oysters, Ontario Perch, MSC Certified Salmon, Belize white shrimp and PEI Mussels. Fun activities also included the chocolate fountain, petting the baby penguins, sting ray, sharks and parrots. What a great way to visit the zoo!
Toronto’s First Diner en Blanc
Diner en Blanc is a worldwide tradition that started 20 years ago in Paris and in Aug 2012, arrived for the first time to Toronto at Fort York as a secret, elegant outdoor dinner party. A little bit of rain didn’t dampen the mood while tables, chairs, glassware and umbrellas were set up for dining and by the time the dancing started the rain had stopped it was a beautiful evening in a sea of white filled with 1,400 guests with sparklers. What a great, unique experience!
100th Grey Cup Gala
The Grey Cup Gala at the Rogers Centre was pretty spectacular! How often do you get to enjoy a gala on the actual turf where the CFL’s 100th Grey Cup Gala takes place with the Toronto Argonauts? Congrats to the Argos for winning this monumental 100th Grey Cup as well! Despite being called a “gala”, the atmosphere was completely casual with the Argos Cheerleaders and athletic legends such as Damon Allen and Michael “Pinball” Clemons just mingling about and being so casually approachable.
THANKS
Thanks to the BestofToronto.net team: Flora, Sabrina and Jana!
And we couldn’t have done it alone. Special thanks to our event friends who have supported us along the way including Halysha, Karine, Susan, Gillian, Jodi, Carolyn, Tys, Esther and Masha.
Very special thanks to Holly who supported us since the beginning! We couldn’t have done so many great things without you! 🙂
Thanks to Sis for bringing us to the next level and thanks to Tanya for always being there! Also thanks to Sari and thanks to Nicole for all your patience and anyone else I’ve forgotten.
Looking forward to working with everyone to discover the Best that Toronto has to offer this year! Much love for Toronto, big thanks to everyone!
-Nick
Comments Off on Kardinal Offishall’s 14th Annual Christmas Event for Sick Kids
Dwight Drummond, Cabbie Richards, Kardinal Offishall, Glen Baxter
It’s surprising how Kardinal Offishall aka Mr. International has been hosting his annual charity Christmas party, now in it’s 14th year already! It was a star-studded night with celebrities such as Michael “Pinball” Clemons, Grammy award winner, Estelle, Karl Wolf, Amon Anderson of the Toronto Raptors, CFL football players from the Toronto Argos and Calgary Stampeders, Glen Baxter from CTV’s In Fashion, Lyriq Bent, CBC’s Dwight Drummond and too many more to list.
The best moment was when I was texting on my phone at the party and the one and only Kardinal Offishall taps me on the shoulder asking how I’m doing. What a great, approachable guy! Guests enjoyed festive cocktails, treats from the Waffle Bar and lots of food from The Tilted Kilt. Following that there were live performances by Karl Wolf and Estelle and dancing the night away to 5 time Stylus award-winning DJ Lissa Monet.
This great Christmas party at This is London supports the SickKids Foundation’s Caribbean Paediatric Cancer and Blood Program.
The Caribbean-SickKids Paediatric Cancer and Blood Disorders Strategy
In the Caribbean, paediatric cancers and serious blood disorders are often fatal because of a shortage of health-care professionals and resources to diagnose and treat children. Through a new outreach initiative, The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is working with partners across the Caribbean to improve outcomes for children affected by these devastating childhood diseases. Unlike in Canada, countries across the Caribbean do not have a health-care system in place to support optimal management of paediatric cancer – from proactive screening to early diagnosis and fast intervention. This means that some children are not diagnosed until it is too late to save them. Those who are diagnosed when the disease is still in the early stages often have difficulty accessing the treatment they need. Six countries across the English-speaking Caribbean community – Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Trinidad & Tobago – have stepped forward to combat this children’s health issue.
What better way to celebrate the Best of Toronto than by supporting Canadian talent! MuchFACT (which stands for A Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent) does just that by funding music videos, EPK, viral video and website productions with the support of MuchMusic and MuchMore, divisions of Bell Media.
Members of the Music Industry Community were in attendance at the annual MuchFACT special screening of 15 different music videos with contributions by MuchFACT spanning various genres of music. We spotted recording artists Massari, Tyler Medeiros, Mia Martina, MuchMusic’s Lauren Toyota, Degrassi’s Melinda Shankar and more. It was a crowded evening on both floors of Screen Lounge. Shout outs to our fellow blogger friends who were there as well and our friend, Chris Strikes, who directed an upcoming short film called One Night a Stranger.
What a great action packed night in celebration and support of Canadian music!
Massari, Mia Martina, Tyler Medeiros
David Kines, chairman of MuchFACT
We ran into our director friend, Chris Strikes
Second from left: Melinda Shankar from Degrassi
About MuchFACT
MuchFACT (A Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent), is the groundbreaking music video, EPK, viral video and website production fund, exclusively sponsored by MuchMusic and MuchMore, divisions of Bell Media. Established in 1984 to increase the number of quality music videos produced in Canada. It was also concurrent with the launch of MuchMusic which committed a percentage of its gross annual revenues to stimulate music video production. Two years later, when MusiquePlus went on the air, it also became a sponsor when it launched in 1986, as did MuchMore when it launched in 1998. This also marked the creation of PromoFACT, an electronic press kit and website production fund for Canadian artists, independent record labels and artist management companies. Originally named VideoFACT, the organization changed its name to MuchFACT in September, 2009. Along with the name change, the PromoFACT program expanded to include viral music videos and other digital music-related content intended for digital distribution.
Since 1984, MuchFACT has handed out over 64 million dollars to over 5,300 projects, helping to launch the careers of a majority of Canada’s most prominent musicians such as: Feist, Nelly Furtado, K-OS, Celine Dion, Barenaked Ladies, The Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts, Arcade Fire, Blue Rodeo, Matthew Good, Bran Van 3000, Sarah McLachlan, Gordon Lightfoot, Great Big Sea, Sloan, Bruce Cockburn and k.d. lang.
Comments Off on A Toronto Christmas in support of Glassfrog
Toronto’s own Oxford Beach hosted their 3rd annual A Toronto Christmas in support of Glassfrog International Aid Organization. Held at the Steamwhistle brewery in the heart of downtown Toronto, the evening was packed with Christmas party people. There were reindeer antlers for everyone, a candy bar, live music by Stiffler’s Mom and DJ Rouge and DJ Mike Wilson.
Our friend, Daniela Correia, Miss Brazil Canada 2012
You can also check out these photos on our Facebook album as well.
ABOUT GLASSFROG International Aid Organization
GlassFrog is a nonprofit organization that provides basic human needs in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. Their projects use on the ground resources to support sustainable economic and social benefits in the communities they assist.
