The Amazing Race Canada’s fourth season premiered last Tuesday, June 28, which is early for the Amazing Race Canada. If this year’s Twitter engagement numbers are any indication, viewers were caught off guard.
Every year, MediaMiser monitors the show on Twitter to gauge the show’s popularity and its impact on sponsors, advertisers, and tourism partners.
Twitter has become a huge promotional tool for the show. Via Twitter the show leverages the contestants, partners, sponsors, and viewers to amplify the show through multiple channels (their Twitter feeds), as opposed to simply relying on the show’s publicists.
The fact that social media allows for two-way conversations only further amplifies the show.
Not surprisingly, with the Amazing Race Canada starting a week early to accommodate the Olympic games in Brazil, Twitter engagement was down just over 20 per cent compared to season 3, episode 1.
It should also be noted that last year’s premiere was on Wednesday and this year’s premiere was on a Tuesday. But likely the biggest impact was the show’s airing at the end of June as opposed to the first half of July.
This change in the show’s timing also likely accounted for the Amazing Race Canada being heavily cross-promoted on other CTV programs such as The Marilyn Denis Show, where eliminated contestants Anthony Limbombe and Brandon Campeau appeared.
One day after the show The Amazing Race Canada also did a live cast on Periscope with Anthony and Brandon, which attracted 706 viewers.
Watch on #Periscope: We’re chatting with @AnthonyaBrandon! Cc: @chevroletcanada #AmazingRaceCanada https://t.co/7fWosjk83P
— Amazing Race Canada (@AmazingRaceCDA) June 29, 2016
Long-time show sponsor Chevrolet Canada was prominently positioned during the Periscope session, as Anthony and Brandon engaged with comments and questions from viewers — again, promoting viewer engagement.
Sponsorship is obviously a big deal for the Amazing Race Canada, and many viewers on Twitter do take note:
Mentos returns as a @AmazingRaceCDA sponsor! #AmazingRaceCanada
— Larry Wong (@LarryWong84) June 29, 2016
This year contestants are wearing gear with a Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) featured prominently. And you can be sure that when a brand resonates with a viewer, references to that brand will often show up in a tweet:
@jonmonty @mec Love the new #AmazingRaceCanada a bit tricky w/cancelled challenge – should have been non-elimination? Can’t wait for #YYC .
— JR (@Ironman_JR) June 29, 2016
But it’s the travel industry that gets the most exposure from the Amazing Race Canada. Travel is, after all, the show’s preeminent theme.
This year the Amazing Race Canada began in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories before travelling to Jasper, Alberta to finish off the first leg of the race.
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, and Alberta received a great deal of positive comments on Twitter. Many tweets actually referenced various travel groups such as Travel Alberta and
Northwest Territories Tourism, but it was Tourism Jasper that received the greatest number of mentions.
Can’t wait to see what @jonmonty & @AmazingRaceCDA contestants got up to in Yellowknife! #AmazingRaceCanada pic.twitter.com/T0va4cYhaL
— Spectacular NWT (@spectacularNWT) June 28, 2016
Holy smokes did @TourismJasper look incredible on @AmazingRaceCDA tonight ! Tough challenges as well!
Nice work @TravelAlberta !— Mark Harding Boulter (@markboulter) June 29, 2016
In the end, though, the Amazing Race Canada is about competition. Viewers won’t tune in unless they can relate to the teams — hence also the reason why Twitter is such an important communication tool for the show, and why every team has at least one Twitter account (unlike previous years).
Already, frontrunners and ex-Big Brother Canada contestants Jillian MacLaughlin and Emmett Blois have the lead when it comes to Twitter mentions (partially due to Emmett’s relatively huge following of more than 44k followers).
Every week MediaMiser will track and measure which remaining contestants are the most popular after every show using MediaMiser’s monitoring solutions.
Next stop for the Amazing Race Canada… Calgary.
Most mentioned contestants:
- Jillian & Emmett (Finished 1st) 37.9%
Jillian MacLaughlin (@JillianMacLaugh), Emmett Blois (@EmmettBlois)
- Joel & Ashley (Finished 4th) 13.8%
Joel Ground (@JoelGround / @Joel_and_Ashley), Ashley Callingbull (@ashcallingbull / @Joel_and_Ashley)
- Stéphane & Antoine (Finished 3rd) 10.1%
Stéphane Tétreault (@StephTetreault), Antoine Tétreault (@AntoineTET)
- Julie & Lowell (Finished 5th) 9.3%
Julie Taylor (@JulieLowellCAN), Lowell Taylor (@JulieLowellCAN)
- Anthony & Brandon (Finished 10th/Eliminated) 8.4%
Anthony Limbombe (@AnthonyaBrandon), Brandon Campeau (@AnthonyaBrandon)
- Steph & Kristen (Finished 2nd) 8.1%
Steph LeClair (@sleclair09), Kristen McKenzie (@krlstenmckenzie)
- Frankie & Amy (Finished 6th) 3.8%
Frankie Gassler (@FrankieFenix74), Amy Gassler (@amygassler)
- Anne & Tanya (Finished 8th) 3.6%
Anne Morrone (@AnneMorrone), Tanya Muzzatti (@tanyamuzzatti)
- Kelly & Kate (Finished 9th) 3.0%
Kelly Xu (@kelly_kateTO), Kate Pan (@kelly_kateTO)
- Rita & Yvette (Finished 7th) 2.0%
Rita Yakibonge (@ritayakis), Yvette Yakibonge (@yyakis)
