Canada has been a hotbed of Interactive Print activity with newspapers ever since we partnered with publishers like Glacier Media and national papers like The Toronto Star. Over that time, Canadian papers have produced some outstanding campaigns using the Layar Creator and now they’re being rewarded for their creativity and innovation.

Three different Layar campaigns have been awarded five prizes at the 2014 Great Idea Awards, a ceremony honoring excellence in newspaper promotion and marketing in Canada. The awards for Layar campaigns include three 1st place prizes for both Glacier Media and The Toronto Star.

The Toronto Star’s “Go Beyond” campaign – a fully interactive newspaper produced in partnership with Nissan Canada – took 1st place for Print Innovation and 2nd place in the Advertising category for daily newspapers. “Scene,” a fully Layar-enabled magazine from Glacier Media’s Prince George Citizen (Prince George, British Columbia), took home a pair of 1st place prizes in the Magazine and Young Reader Engagement Initiative categories.

“It is a truly interactive print product that drives reader engagement using Layar technology,” said Norm Coyne, founder of Scene. “The ability of readers to use their smartphones to interact with the content and ads in the magazine has taken the Scene PG to a whole new level.”

Another Glacier Media paper – The Peak from Powell River, British Columbia – was awarded a 2nd place prize in the Newspaper Marketing & Promotion category. The campaign encouraged readers to discover the paper’s interactive features through a contest which raised funds for a local hockey club mascot.

“Our staff all participated enthusiastically in the Layar promotion that we hosted as game-night sponsor for our Powell River Kings Junior Hockey Team. They even brought their children to help demonstrate Layar to fans,” said Joyce Carlson, Publisher at Peak Publishing. “Sharing Layar technology was rewarding and placing second in Canada for our entry was extremely satisfying. I’m proud of our staff for coming up with this creative project.”

The awards will be presented at the annual Newspapers Canada Ink & Beyond conference in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island on May 29th.

To discover more about how newspapers can take advantage of Interactive Print, visit our Layar in Newspapers page where you can download our Newspaper Industry Overview.

The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, and Nissan Canada have been nominated as a finalist for the renowned International News Media Association (INMA) Awards for its “Go Beyond” Interactive Print campaign in the Best Marketing Solution for an Advertising Client category.

The paper collaborated with Nissan Canada – which worked previously with creative agencies TBWA and OMD on an award winning 2012 Interactive Print campaign – to create an interactive newspaper experience that brings digital content to the pages of the paper. They launched the “Go Beyond” campaign in September of 2013, allowing readers to interact with the newspaper by scanning the pages with the Layar App. 

Nissan Canada contributed 30 interactive advertisements and sponsored the “Go Beyond” campaign. Readers could see photographs morph into videos, videos of their favorite columnists and even a behind-the-scenes look at the construction of a new aquarium. Additionally, a contest provided users with the chance to win a $3,000 travel voucher. 

The results of the campaign were a huge success, producing lots of encouraging reactions from readers. The well crafted and positioned calls-to-action in the Toronto Star created a 2,200% boost in Layar App downloads in Canada above the daily average. Of those that scanned a page, an unprecedented 95% clicked-through and interacted with the content, and 20% went on to scan content again in the 3 days following the campaign.

“It was important that the audience had the opportunity to participate in an augmented newspaper that leveraged the technology to provide a deeper connection to the content,” said Tami Coughlan, Associate Director of the Toronto Star’s Integrated Solutions Team in an article on INMA.org.

“We wanted to create anticipation for what was coming next and create motivation to look for the clues throughout the paper that uncovered deeper stories, videos, interactive games, and animations,” she added.

The campaign has also been submitted to Canada’s National Newspaper Awards which will be announced on May 30th. The INMA Awards winners will be announced on May 13th at INMA World Congress in San Francisco.

We’re crossing our fingers for the Toronto Star’s campaign. Lots of hard work went into this project, and it would be great to see a second Interactive Print campaign in Canada be rewarded for its efforts.