National Post Awards for Business in the Arts
Past Winners
2003
Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership
EPCOR
Calgary Consortium led by Framework Partners
PARA Paints
Most Innovative Marketing Sponsorship
Volkswagen Canada
Investors Group
Lexus of Oakville
Most Effective Corporate Program
Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer
TELUS
du Maurier Arts Council
Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership
Winner Profile:
EPCOR
To underscore its commitment to the Calgary market, Edmonton-based utility EPCOR bought the naming rights to the Centre for the Performing Arts for $4 million dollars, payable into its endowment, over 10 years. The decision to partner with the arts centre provides the electricity marketer with high visibility in the province's largest business market, while providing the facility with known fixed costs for its utilities over the next decade. But the Epcor /Centre partnership goes beyond cash and kind to include the provision of marketing expertise, not just to the Centre itself, but to support all the performing arts in Calgary. In addition, the two have undertaken the challenge of making the Centre a model of energy-efficiency in its use of electricity, water and gas.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
Calgary Consortium led by Framework Partners
Dismayed by the news of the imminent bankruptcy of the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, a consortium of seven businesses came together and contributed $450,000 worth of services and over 8,000 volunteer hours over two-months. Led by management consulting firm, Framework Partners, the group created a a renewal plan for the CPO that has been called "stunning in its innovation" by the Canada Council for the Arts. Law firm Fraser Milner Casgrain provided all the legal advice needed to ensure a smooth period of bankruptcy protection, including drawing in Richter Allan & Taylor Inc. as receiver to provide its expertise in financial re-organization. Then, Communication Incorporated and Jock Osler Communications took charge of public, media and government relations, securing $750,000 in funding from all three levels of government. Helping to regain the confidence of donors was the job undertaken by The Development Group who analysed and re-focussed the fund-raising efforts, while Ipsos-Reid undertook much-needed market research.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
PARA Paints
PARA Paints created a palette of paints for home decorators drawn from the McMichael Canadian Collection's famous canvasses. McMichael's curators helped to select ten works from which PARA created 30 distinctive tints, based on the colours of Canada: earth, water and sky. To promote the new collection, PARA created colour cards that feature reproductions of the paintings from which the colours are derived, and also provide brief biographies of the artists and a description of the McMichael gallery itself. Distributed through PARA dealers across Canada, these marketing pieces provide an introduction to Canadian art history while "allowing every Canadian to have a little Group of Seven for their walls."
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Most Innovative Marketing Sponsorship
Winner Profile:
Volkswagen Canada
Seeing the perfect fit between the market for its new "Beetle" and the audience for short, off-beat films, Volkswagen signed on to the Toronto International Film Festival Group as the title sponsor of the Volkswagen Canadian Short Film Showcase. In so doing, it committed the talents and resources of its creative marketing team who created trailers and brochures and encouraged local dealers across the country to tie-in promotional ticket give-aways. In addition, Volkswagen enabled filmmakers to travel across Canada to introduce their films to audiences. The result is that in 2003 the Showcase screened 30% more short films than last year, introducing short films by Canadians to an audience of 320,000 people in 110 communities in 9 provinces.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
Investors Group
For the past four years communities throughout BC - from the lower Mainland to Northern BC, from Vancouver Island to the interior - have enjoyed the experience of live professional theatre through Investors Group's sponsorship of the Arts Club Theatre's annual tour. For Investors Group, the tour sponsorship allows the company to provide marketing services to all its offices and their clients equally; for the Vancouver-based Arts Club it provides access to a province-wide sales force that actively markets the annual show. But the tour's impact is greater than the sum of its parts: for many of Investors Group's clients this event has introduced them to live theatre - and community theatres across the province have reaped the benefits in increased sales of their own subscription packages.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
Lexus of Oakville
Oakville Galleries has developed an enviable reputation for its contemporary exhibitions - and with that has come a dedicated following of art collectors who appreciate quality design. Eight years ago a Lexus car dealer saw a great opportunity to reach the town's market for luxury vehicles by sponsoring the Oakville Galleries. What began as a single exhibit sponsorship has extended into an $80,000 dollar, 8-year cross-promotional partnership between the Galleries and Lexus, which has helped the Galleries to produce excellent exhibitions. It has also helped Lexus to broaden its customer base in the community to the point that, in 2001, the company built one of only six Canadian dealerships in Oakville.
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Most Effective Corporate Program
Winner Profile:
Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP
It is rare for a law firm to take the kind of strategic approach to arts support taken by Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer - usually decisions are taken by individual partners. At BD&P partners serve on a variety of boards, bringing their volunteer expertise to organizations as diverse as One Yellow Rabbit Theatre and the Epcor Centre; the firm provides annual support to 10 organizations ranging from Albert Ballet to the Calgary Youth Singers; and in 1999 it undertook the first year of a $50,000 title sponsorship of the World Music Series which it has since buttressed with marketing efforts that include outdoor ads.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
TELUS
In British Columbia TELUS has long been known as a supporter of arts programs aimed at youth, a techno-savvy market that the communications company understands well. It has now extended the reach of this effective corporate program nationwide through its strategic partnership with the National Arts Centre's Youth and Education Trust. TELUS provided the lead funding to enable the creation of ArtsAlive.ca a bilingual website which allows children, youth and teachers the opportunity to interact in real time with NAC artists. Beyond the website, TELUS also undertook to help the National Arts Centre launch a multi-faceted strategy to encourage young people to explore the performing arts.
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Award of Distinction Profile:
du Maurier Arts Council
From the 290 arts organizations that received du Maurier Arts Council Grants this year, letters of support flowed in - especially from Quebec and the Maritimes. Each of them echoed the words of Harbourfront Centre who stated simply: "The du Maurier Arts Council has arguably been the most important non-government supporter of Canada's arts community. Be it contemporary dance, theatre classics, jazz or opera - du Maurier has been there." Indeed, since its inception in 1971 the du Maurier Arts Council has awarded over $60 million dollars to a total of 675 artistic organizations active in every province and territory.
This is not the first time that the du Maurier Arts Council has been recognized with a Business in the Arts Award, but it is the last. This Business in the Arts Award Winner actually ceased to exist on October the first, when federal tobacco legislation came in to effect and ended three decades of extraordinary support of the arts by the du Maurier Arts Council.
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