Festival Marketing Strategies Create Memorable Experiences at World Pride

With hundreds of thousands of guests at World Pride this year, there was a generous amount of festival marketing strategies put into effect to make the event a success.

For months leading up to Pride, there were a ton of promotions not just around the city of Toronto, but around the world as well. Who doesn’t like a good party once in a while? Well, we can tell you that Pride guests absolutely love to celebrate for days! Before the day of the Parade which took place on June 29th, there were many events taking place around Toronto. To gather people together before the Parade, copious amounts of festival marketing strategies came together. There were street fairs, concerts, parties and more! Hence the name, ‘World Pride’, people from all over the globe came to Toronto for this incredible festival. The streets were packed, and you could sense the love everywhere. World Pride was also a ‘trending’ topic on Twitter, with so many people using the hashtag #WP14TO, which caught the attention of the Twitter world.

World Pride, which was presented by Toronto Pride this year, is an international celebration which embraces activism, education, and the history and culture of global LGBTTIQQ2SA communities. It was a special day for Toronto this year, as Pride celebrated the city as being one of the world’s most progressive and livable cities.

To aid Pride’s festival marketing strategies, they had various sponsors promoting the Parade as well. To name a few of World Pride’s media sponsors: CP24, CTV, MTV, Toronto Star, and more. If you tune into the news or radio, you definitely would have heard these media outlets promoting the festival. Pride also had their ‘Gold Sponsors’, such as Budlight, OLG, Smart, Barefoot, and Hilton who had a huge part in the execution of this 10 day celebration.

Tigris & Top Gear Partner up with Pzifer’s Festival Marketing Strategies

So did you get to experience World Pride this summer? If not, I’m sorry to say, but you really missed out on an amazing time! Not only was there a huge parade, but there were a range of entertainers from singers to dancers, and even performers hundreds of feet in the air playing with fire! As you can imagine, there was no room for a dull moment at World Pride this year.

I had the privilege of viewing Pride both as a Tigris employee, and as an actual guest on my own personal time. Having an understanding of how much hard work and dedication is put into the parade really made the experience that much better for me. I had seen our account manager working with Tigris’ client, Pfizer, coming up with festival marketing strategies to ensure that they’re event execution would be a success.

There was a lavish amount of floats in this year’s Parade, with Pfizer being one of them. The Parade stretched from Church & Wellesley to Dundas Square. Being 5 ft 2, I was too short to see the parade because of the mass amount of people there, but my friends said it was great! 😉

For the 3rd year in a row, Tigris teamed up Top Gear Marketing from Montreal to book a team of mature brand ambassadors, aged 30 and up, to represent Viagra for Pfizer in the World Pride Parade. We staffed a dozen of our most outgoing and mature male event staff to be a part of this team.

Wondering what the the big blue Pfizer balloon is all about? Pfizer is a healthcare company which is dedicated to helping Canadians live healthier lives. This healthcare company offers unique ways in making a difference in the health and well-being of Canadians. For the Pride Parade in particular, Pfizer was promoting one of their biggest products, Viagra.

To promote their product, Tigris’ enthusiastic brand ambassadors marched in the Parade, waving to spectators, distributing branded giveaways, carrying the balloon, and chatting with guests. Viagra was there to show their pride and join in on all the fun and inspiration!

Pfizer’s festival marketing strategies paid off, and their float was a hit again this year!