Air Canada - Athlete Of The Year

Air Canada - Athlete Of The Year

As a proud sponsor of Canada’s Olympic team, Air Canada flies the country’s athletes around the world to compete and train, but the effort does not stop there. The airline is also active in non-competition years, helping raise the profile of Canadian Olympic athletes (and themselves) by regularly engaging the public and media to drum up excitement.

The Air Canada “Athlete of the Year” launched in 2012 as a partnership with Canadian Olympic Committee. Every year since then, it has recognized one Canadian sports figure who embodies the ambition, drive and ability of the nation – as voted by the public.

This year the contest was open from November 21st to December 2nd and Canadians could vote for one of three finalists (Derek Drouin , Rosie McLennan and Andre De Grasse ) selected by a committee of stakeholders including Air Canada, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the former winner, the government and the media. The three finalist athletes each got a bio page at special microsite where folks could learn more about them and how to follow their journeys.

Though modest in scale and reach, this contest (which offers round-trip economy tickets, ex-taxes and fees, to a randomly selected voter and First Class tickets plus one year elite status and a page in enRoute Magazine to the athlete) succeeded in showing the airline in a patriotic light, and also won in write ups from Yahoo Sports, TheObserver.ca and the Canadian Olympics website .

The contestants themselves also helped to spread the word about Athlete of the Year through their own web pages and social media accounts.