This week’s edition of the Estevan Mercury features our annual Art in Advertising promotion, sponsored by Your Toy Store and More.
Art in Advertising features 20 ads that were created by young people ages seven to 15 for Estevan area businesses. The Mercury put out an appeal on Facebook, looking for young people to participate. Parents were encouraged to sign their kids up to be part of the promotion.
“It’s just a way to show kids how advertising works,” said Deanna Tarnes, the Mercury’s publisher and sales manager. “Kids were randomly assigned ads that were purchased by local businesses, and the kids built the ad as if it was a regular ad for something these businesses need to promote.”
Every young person who designed an ad will receive a $20 gift card to Your Toy Store and More. The Mercury is grateful to the local business for sponsoring the promotion and encouraging local kids to be creative.
In the past the Mercury partnered with the camps offered at the Estevan Art Gallery and Museum or the Southeast College to make this promotion possible. But due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those camps were not offered in their traditional forms this year.
As part of the camps, the young people would get a tour of the Mercury office and would get to see the entire process of how the paper is put together from start to finish.
This year the kids picked up their ad at the Mercury office, took it home and coloured it and brought it back to the Mercury.
The system for this year has worked out well, Tarnes said. Many of the kids who were involved this year were older.
“It’s a nice way to have kids be interested in the newspaper, too. It’s way to keep the youth involved. They’ll be excited to look at their ads, and show their friends they made their ads.”
A nice variety of businesses participated in this year’s promotion, so the kids get to know the different businesses in the city.
“As always, the business community just really stepped up and supported the initiative,” said Tarnes.
The ads can be seen throughout this week’s edition of the Mercury. A photo gallery can be found on www.estevanmercury.ca.
