Toronto Launches Consumer Ad Campaign

Toronto has launched a new advertising campaign that highlights this hip, youthful and romantic urban destination that Tourism Toronto has dubbed “Canada’s downtown.”

The ad features ballet dancers riding the subway, Chinatown, Toronto’s sports teams, same-sex couples and a Drake concert, highlighted with a display of the diverse cultures that make up Canada’s most populous city. It also portrays the city’s open welcome to LGBT couples, using the catchphrase, “All flavours are welcome.”

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Tourism Toronto EVP Andrew Weir said that the campaign is “about being a big, global city with a distinctly Canadian feel and perspective.”

Funded by the Greater Toronto Hotel Association’s Destination Marketing Program, the campaign is being rolled out this spring with videos and digital ads, reaching consumers through “sophisticated behavioural targeting,” Tourism Toronto said in a press release.

Resonance, a tourism brand marketing company, recently ranked Toronto in its Top 10 of the World’s Best City Brands, a global index that benchmarks places using a unique combination of core statistics and visitor perception metrics from a range of social media.

Toronto’s final 2016 tourism numbers aren’t in yet, but Tourism Toronto believes the city topped a record-setting 2015 of 14 million overnight visitors.

If you’re heading north, please stop by TMR’s Travel Marketplace, a unique peer-to-peer learning experience in Toronto June 13-14, and meet our reporters and editors! Click here for more information.