Anglo school board campaign dumps most of its advertising dollars into Ontario media

The Western Quebec School Board (WQSB) inked an important advertisement agreement with New Cap Radio which operates LiVE 88.5 FM and Hot 89.9 FM, this year. These radio stations are owned by a corporation with holdings in most major Canadian cities.

For more than $18,000, the WQSB sponsored a weather report every weekday morning this spring on the two Ottawa radio stations between 6 am and 9 am.

“Annually, we spend about $20,000 in advertising campaigns and materials to make the public aware of our vocational training programs. This year, we tried a radio campaign aimed at the 18-40 audience,” said Paul Lamoureux, WQSB Director General. This age group includes most continuing education students.

“The decision to go with these two (Ontario) stations (Hot 89.9 and LiVE 88.5) is based on market share of the listening population in the targeted age group. In addition, the choice to sponsor the weather and go long-term is to take advantage of the “earworm” effect and the raised recognition of WQSB as a result,” hoped Mr Lamoureux.

The WQSB ads aired at varied times during the Morning Hot Tub show on Hot 89.9 FM and during the Morning Start Up show on LiVE 88.5 FM. Each report included the line “Weather from the Western Quebec School Board.” The school board benefited from a free “weather tag” when they signed on for the number of 15-second ads at $80 each.

The WQSB will evaluate the impact of the Ontario campaign at the end of June. Employees will look at website hits, questions to new registrations and response to a survey titled “How have you heard about us?”.