Our Advertising and Sponsorship Group

In today's business environment, it can be challenging to know the boundary between prohibited practices and pushing the envelope from a marketing perspective. The Advertising and Sponsorship Group Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG) can help you structure your advertising projects, marketing programs and product packaging as well as raise the public profile of your corporate name, logos and brands using our vast expertise in advertising, marketing, sponsorship, packaging and labelling. Notably, we have specific experience with issues involving comparative advertising, false/misleading advertising, consumer packaging, contest and lotteries, and trade-mark, trade dress and copyright infringement.

At BLG, we provide legal services to advertising agencies as well as public and private companies in a variety of different industries (food and beverage, tobacco products, pharmaceutical products, retail, hospitality and resort operation, and financial services, among others). Our lawyers have appeared before various levels of court and regulatory bodies with respect to advertising and other related issues.

We also have expertise in all legal aspects of sponsorship, including the negotiation of sponsorship agreements and exclusive advertising and supply agreements. We regularly provide advice on a variety of issues that arise in the area of sponsorship law, including sponsorship fees, sponsorship rights, naming rights, exclusivity clauses, merchandising, promotion, and broadcasting.

With cutting-edge, industry-focused support, BLG is driven to help you achieve the best possible results.

Our Services

We provide the following services, among others:

• Reviewing all types of advertising projects and marketing programs in terms of legislative compliance and suggest changes as required.
• Filing applications for authorizations and follow up with regulatory authorities, such as Industry Canada, the Canadian Advertising Standards Council and the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux, as well as with other regulatory bodies.
• Developing comprehensive competition law compliance programs for businesses, including in-house seminars and audits for firm clients on various topics such as advertising law, trade-mark law and competition/antitrust law.
• Making representations to obtain the requisite approvals from various regulatory bodies and we seek review of decisions where necessary.
• Advising with respect to compliance of advertising projects with rules applicable on trade-marks and other intellectual property.
• Analyzing advertising projects prepared by our clients and by their competitors to ensure legislative compliance.
• Drafting and reviewing contest rules, reviewing advertising projects relating to contests and lotteries, reviewing intellectual property issues and file and following up on notices of holding of contests.
• Reviewing packaging and labelling proposals. We have been involved with Industry Canada in resolving packaging and labelling issues. We regularly assist clients with respect to various packaging and labelling issues, often involving issues relevant to trade between the U.S. and Canada.
• Taking proceedings to protect our clients against infringement of their rights by competitors.
• Negotiating, drafting and/or advising on a wide variety of sponsorship agreements including event sponsorships (such as the Commonwealth Games and Les Jeux de la Francophonie), naming rights agreements and venue based sponsorship agreements.
• Representing venue-based clients such as convention centres, stadiums and resorts, as well as universities, private companies and government with respect to all aspects of sponsorship.
• Negotiating and preparing strategic business alliance agreements including exclusive marketing and supply agreements, joint promotion and marketing agreements, co-branding agreements, merchandising and promotion agreements, loyalty card program agreements and other strategic business alliances, often between our clients and their largest suppliers.

Our Experience

Representative transactions include:

• Long term multi-million dollar sponsorship and supply agreements between universities and colleges in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Québec, with cold beverage manufacturers and other suppliers
• Loyalty program agreements, including a loyalty program agreement between one of Canada 's largest retailers and Canada 's largest airline.
• Joint marketing and promotion agreements between municipal and provincial tourism associations and their strategic corporate "partners" and members.
• Conference centre and other naming rights agreements.
• Venue based sponsorship and supply agreements for B.C. Place Stadium, Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, Tradex and other event venues.
• Strategic marketing alliances, supply and sponsorship agreements for Canada 's premiere resort owner/operator.
• Advising clients in connection with events and event based sponsorships such as the Commonwealth Games, Les Jeux de la Francophonie, Expo 86 and the Olympics.
• Ongoing representation of local, national and international sponsorship and advertising agencies.
• Representative clients include JTI-Macdonald, Future Shop, Cathay Pacific Airlines, Hewlett-Packard, Loblaws, New Balance, Motts North America, Frost Brown Todd LLC, Pharmacia Canada, Intrawest, B.C. Pavilion Corporation, B.C. Place Stadium, Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, as well as universities and colleges across the country.
• We regularly negotiate and draft agreements for our clients with companies such as Nike, Inc., Coca-Cola Bottling Company, The Pepsi Bottling Group (Canada), Co., Telus, Air Canada, Bayer Inc., General Motors of Canada Ltd., IBM Canada Ltd., The North Face Inc., Bell Canada, The Perrier Group of Canada, AT&T and many others.