The Eighth Edition of Astral Out of Home’s Carte Blanche Competition Launches Today

Astral Out of Home, a division of Bell Media, announced today the launch of its eighth annual Carte Blanche advertising competition, with winners in three markets: Québec, Toronto, and Western Canada (Calgary, Edmonton, and Vancouver). For the very first time this year, all entrants will be working with the same format: large format Digital Superboards. “This year, we’ve decided to go with a single digital format to give participants an opportunity to combine creativity with technology,” said Michael Alexandor, Vice- President, Marketing & Innovation, Bell Media Sales. “Creative talent are hungry for innovation, and our structures allow them to explore avenues that only digital can offer. We’re extremely proud to always present a competition that keeps up with the latest industry trends, making it a highly prestigious event among Canada’s creative community.” To enter, Carte Blanche participants must create an original, digital out-of-home ad for one of their agency clients and submit it to CarteBlancheforCreatives.ca by April 10. There’s no brief, so creative teams have “carte blanche” to come up with a concept. There are no registration fees and no entry limit. All entries will be evaluated by the creative community and by a jury of their peers. The winning creative team gets a trip to the prestigious International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, as well as a $50,000 Astral Out-of-Home ad campaign for their client. Toronto and Western Canada Important Dates:

• General voting phase for the creative community – April 20-27
• Finalists announced – April 28
• Jury vote – May 1-4

The Carte Blanche competition is supported by a transit shelter out-of-home advertising campaign located close to ad agencies, as well as online and on social media. The campaign direction for this year’s competition comes from last year’s winners: “The creative team that made this doesn’t want you to enter Carte Blanche. They’d rather win it themselves. But go ahead, enter. If you want.” Carte Blanche encourages creatives to think outside of the box with out-of-home advertising, and offers a clean slate to do so. An agency tour is planned in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver to promote the competition, and share some of the most creative and innovative OOH executions. Winners will be announced in all three markets in May. For more information, competition rules and the latest competition news, visit our website or follow Carte Blanche on Facebook and Twitter.

Carte Blanche – 2016 Winners From left: Montréal: Krispy Kernels (lg2, Marc Guilbault & Guillaume Bergeron) Toronto: Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (John St., Jenny Luong & Martin Stinnissen) Western Canada: Molson Canadian (Rethink, Melissa Haebe & Sean O’Connor)