What happens after the pancake flip?
Businesses are vying for a chance to sponsor the Calgary Stampede.
Good evening everyone.
I joined a panel last night about how to engage audiences as culture becomes more fragmented: Istiana Bestari gave away secrets for community building at Monday Girl, Andrew Sardone spoke to the importance of surprise and nuance in the Globe Style, and Alyssa Whitead dropped a masterclass in marketing from her work with Youtube.
Stefania Yarhi and the team at Narrative XPR ran a poll with Angus Reid to ground our discussion: the most interesting finding to me was how few people can express what makes anything “culturally relevant” anymore, and yet most people agree that brands can’t really succeed without aligning themselves with what is relevant in culture.
While it’s easier than ever to connect with audiences, it’s harder than ever to hold their attention. And yet the way through to people as a brand is the same it’s always been: provide consistent, thoughtful, high-quality touch points, on and offline, that either connect to a value your audience shares, or a problem they’re looking to solve.
The Peak grew to be Canada’s most-read daily business newsletter (at a time when most media companies in the country were struggling) because every day we showed up with one simple goal: making you smarter in less than five minutes. Every time I run into a reader, that’s still how they describe The Peak. That’s how you break through!
Unrelated but I was told the hack for avoiding long lines to get out of that “weird stadium in the middle of nowhere” is to stay for the after party at the Amex lounge. Hope that helps!
The Globe and Mail published a great article last week about the growing corporate presence at the Calgary Stampede, which made me appreciate the wonder of a place where the c-suite of every major Canadian company and our elected officials have the same Friday night plans as my friend’s sister’s bachelorette party.
I love that people go to the Stampede to get silly and film fit checks, but I wanted to understand how the people trying to get deals done are moving through the festival: Arif Khimani, president and COO of MobSquad was nice enough to break it down for me before heading out for an evening of chuckwagon racing.
Let’s start with the chuckwagons, because they represent the biggest event of the Stampede and where a lot of the money flows: 27 drivers secured $3.8 million worth of sponsorships this year, up from $3.1 million last year, and MobSquad’s six-figure spend on three drivers makes it one of the most important supporters of the races.
This year’s auction for sponsorships was “extremely competitive,” Arif told me. It’s a good way to show up for the city, but sponsoring a driver also comes with its perks: you and your guests can hang out in the barn hours before the races, then head to a VIP dinner and up to the stands to watch the action unfold.
I went to one of these races when I was handling media for BMO executives in 2018 and can confirm it’s a great time. Arif said the casual nature of the Stampede makes it easy to build new relationships and solidify existing ones, and spoke about how few events bring out the same kind of people across business, politics, and the arts.
“People always say this is a week where you spend no time at your desk but get an incredible amount of work done,” he said, “I’m always impressed by who shows up. Every major company is involved, including every c-suite. You never know who you’re going to meet and what partnerships you’re going to form.”
Corporate interest is also seen as a gauge for how people are feeling about Calgary, which feels especially important as some Albertan officials float the idea of separating from Canada. There’s no shortage of events being thrown across the city this week, and I’d love more information on who held the after party for the pancake flip.
Mejuri is hosting a summer party at a brewery in the Hamptons tomorrow.
I don’t think the human brain can comprehend one trillion dollars. Let alone four, which now is the market value of Nvidia, the highest of any public company.
It is hard to keep airlines alive in Canada but Maciej Wilk just signed on to try. Maciej came on as the interim CEO of Flair Airlines last year, after more than five years as the COO of LOT Polish Airlines, and has worked to improve finances and on-time performance. He has a similar resume to Westjet’s CEO, a German BCG consultant turned Lufthansa executive who went on to take the role in 2022.
There’s a long list of airlines that have tried and failed to compete with Air Canada and WestJet, including Swoop, Lynx, Canada Jetlines, and Sunwing.
In looking into this story I learned that Roots launched a premium airline back in 2001 called RootsAir, which was absorbed by Air Canada within a year.
Male executives are starting their day by getting into flow state. A shift to low intensity workouts has helped fuel the pilates boom and I wonder if yoga is next.
Ontario Place designs are out and Alex Bozikovic had a few things to say.
A growing number of women are making a living by teaching you how to be skinny. Liv Schmidt, one of the leading creators on #SkinnyTok, has been so far banned from TikTok and from monetizing content on Meta after she hit a reported $140,000 in monthly earnings from her subscriber community, but every time she seems to come back stronger, which is something called weeks ago: “Will they just pop up in others that are harder to regulate? What then?”
I applied by plugging in my Instagram handle and received this invitation last month. I will mention that I did not opt into the program. People won’t stop cutting down the city’s most efficient speed camera.
Weeks ago I interviewed the manager of 10 Dean about the matcha craze. He said we were at the “very beginning of a tough shortage,” and the Wall Street Journal has since reported that matcha drinkers are turning on each other online, calling out those who they suspect are hoarding the caffeinated green stuff.
