Hope you’re ready for the CFL, because avoiding the league’s marketing message is about to become difficult.

The CFL kicked off a marketing campaign Wednesday based on the “What We’re Made Of” re-brand unveiled at last year’s Grey Cup, and it’s aimed at strengthening the league’s presence in Toronto and Montreal.

For now, the blitz consists mainly of posters showcasing attributes — like “Grit,” “Heart” and “Soul” — that endear the league and its players to would-be fans. But it will grow to include billboards and on-screen commercials at Cineplex theatres, says the CFL.

“The biggest difference about . . . the marketing around the upcoming season is that we are going to be a little louder and prouder,” says Christina Litz, the CFL’s senior vice-president of content and marketing in an email to the Star.

While the posters popping up in Toronto and Montreal are aimed at driving single-game ticket sales on the league’s website, they’re also part of a broader branding exercise across the league and in Toronto.

The league’s campaign unfolds the same week the Argos are going public with their brand makeover, and soon TSN’s CFL-themed advertising will begin appearing around Toronto.

CFL spokesperson Paulo Senra says the three marketing blitzes spring from a months-long planning process designed to ensure they complement each other instead of drowning out each other’s messages.

If the national and local campaigns feel similar, it’s not an accident. Both were conceived by Toronto ad agency Bensimon Byrne, which has worked with the CFL for more than a decade and was hired by the Argos this off-season.

There are differences, of course.

The CFL’s 2015 re-brand is aimed at a broad audience, including many fans in markets where the league is already strong, while overhauling the Argos brand means reaching fans who might have tuned the team out. So where the league-wide campaign stresses concepts like hustle and emotion, the Argos ads emphasize concrete selling points like tailgaiting and the overall game-day experience.

But both campaigns involve selling a distinct brand of football in a competitive sports marketplace.

“We’re showing people that the CFL is full of all these amazing things and the Argos are proof to that point,” says Lorne Covant the creative director for Bensimon Byrne’s Argos campaign. “When we’re proving it we have to explain exactly what about the Argos makes them live up to that promise. You know you’re going to get a good game based on who the CFL but the team itself has to live up to that.”

Senra says the first posters connected with the CFL’s campaign will begin appearing in strategically-targeted neighbourhoods, like Queen St. West and Liberty Village, that surround BMO Field, which will host both the Argos and the Grey Cup this season.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: