Introducing Doctors Care

Back in June, 2012, Picante Advertising was invited to meet with the CEO and COO of Doctors Manitoba. We had preliminary discussions and Picante put together a draft of a communications document, complete with proposed strategic objectives and an analysis of what other similar organizations across the country were doing.

By November, Picante had a plan to present with an unusual and innovative idea.

We received early approval in concept  but still had to receive broad general approval of the Doctors Manitoba board.

This was accomplished on January 16th and Doctors Care is now in pre-production.

Doctors Care is a 13 week television series that will focus on the daily lives of some of Manitoba's hardest working and most accomplished doctors.  It will focus on health and wellbeing information for Manitoba patients and highlight research and other activity that is putting Manitoba's medical community on the global stage.

This is an ambitious project and we're confident that Doctors Care will deliver a powerful message to the citizens of Manitoba about their own, building pride, trust and confidence.

The series will launch in September, 2013 and will be available on Shaw.

Happy New Year!

Definitely time for a quick update on the fall/winter season thus far at Picante.


City of Winnipeg - Know Your Zone

General Grader

Following a very busy October with the Massage Therapy Association of Manitoba, we got busy with the relaunch of Know Your Zone 2012.  As it happened - nothing went quite as planned.

Last year, the City of Winnipeg launched a brand new snow removal system, and Picante Advertising was selected from several different agencies to create a public information campaign.

We developed two animated characters, General Grader and Lieutenant Loader and created the award-winning Know Your Zone campaign.  Then, in a very unusual circumstance for our fair city, there was little snow in the winter of 2011-12 and a residential snow clearing operation was never called!

This year it was decided to re-launch the campaign on a more modest basis.  The campaign elements were all there - we just needed to place the media.   Target launch date:  November 15th.

On Saturday, November 10th....it began snowing.  And snowing.  And snowing.  I received the call on Saturday afternoon from client Ken Allen from the City of Winnipeg Public Works - a residential plow would begin on Monday, November 12th - 4 days before the planned launch of the campaign!

To add to the challenge, November 11th (Remembrance Day) triggered a holiday day for many Winnipeg citizens.

Kudos to those within the city who worked tirelessly over the weekend to plan the snow clearing operation, inform 311, develop and send out the news release, the IT people who updated the website etc. etc.

And a big thanks to members of Winnipeg's media who attended our hastily prepared News Conference on a frigid Monday morning.  While I'm at it, I'll mention those 311 operators who received an inundation of calls.

All in all, there were very few complaints about this massive and complicated first implementation of the new system.

And I have to say, there was excellent exposure from the media campaign which kicked off one week late....(keep in mind that the buy was arranged in August.)

I love an all's well that ends well story.  Thanks to Ken Allen for his devotion to this city and his enthusiasm and support of our campaign.

Grant Park Shopping Centre

November and December meant getting Grant Park Shopping Centre ready for the holidays.  We developed a stunning outdoor campaign that mirrored the new creative Everyday Essentials.  And we created a sensational Holiday Gift Guide.  The merchants were really involved, helping us select unique gift ideas.  Thanks to Samanta Katz Photography and a special shout out to Sami who modeled the Spirit Hood for the brochure- she looked mahvelous.  Quick turnaround by Corporate Source Printing and thanks to The Sign Source who help with all the special decals and posters we create each season for Grant Park.

Sandi Haganaars has done a wonderful job of managing all the significant changes at Grant Park and Jen Larrazabel does a fantastic job with the social media there.

Thanks to designer Charlene Lannoo for another terrific job and Tyler Bachewich for the radio spots.

Bothwell Cheese

New Labels for some exciting new cheese flavours for Bothwell.

The Winnipeg Police Service

Continued to fine tune the Winnipeg Police commercial and presented a final version just before Christmas to Staff Sergeant Rob Riffel.  Can't wait for it to go to air in the new year.



Working on some very exciting things in the new year that I can't wait to blog about.  Updates shortly.

I hope 2013 brings peace and joy, health and happiness to you and yours.  The year promises to be full of new and dynamic challenges for us and we can't wait to get started.