Advertising on the Ontario Community Awareness Network is available ONLY to local business owners and operators. We will not accept membership or advertising from big box outlets, chain stores, or franchises. We also offer industry-specific exclusivity that will eliminate the risk of a conflict of interest that could limit the effectiveness of our cross-promotion network.

To ensure the value of our service, we have compiled a list of about 200 specific industry types found in our area. Many large industries, such as real estate, are broken down into specifics like residential, commercial, and property management, as most professionals in that trade work mostly in one area. The same can be said for a bakery that makes cakes that does not directly compete with one that specializes in bread, and how a handyman service is not the same as a carpenter. A complete list can be made available.

Through your association with the Ontario Community Awareness Network, your business will stand out amongst your competition when you are seen twice weekly on your own social platforms to be supporting our projects that help the community that we all share and the charities that call it home. It is also easy to understand how such consistent visible support of the community and charity will single your business out for kudos and awards for altruism within your marketplace. The wise entrepreneur will see the many benefits of advertising on the Ontario Community Awareness Network.

Sadly, our policy of exclusivity is a double-edged sword. If a local business owner does not accept our offer to join the Ontario Community Awareness Network, or they procrastinate, the offer will be made to their competitors. If one of them accepts, they will also be offered first right of refusal for continued membership. We have already been contacted by business owners of various industry-specific groups asking for information and even offers to join without details based solely on the obvious benefits. However, we have chosen to exercise our right to select our fist choice for each industry before accepting membership from people we do not know. We do not wish to ostracise any business, but it is our desire to ensure that top-line local business are the core of the Ontario Community Awareness Network. To do so will optimize its reach and value for advertising.

We have so far been the exclusive supporters of our video programming, and in return we alone have enjoyed the 300% growth in business that came as a result of our commitment to our community. Now, as a five-year-old established network, we are offering this unique method of advertising that will help Barrie businesses, support our local community, and boost our local economy through the message ‘Our Community United’.

On our network, a local bakery would repost our story with their own comment identifying themselves as an active member of both the Ontario Community Awareness Network and the community. That positive post would then be seen and likely shared by their existing and potential customers. However, the effect does not stop there. That shared post then also helps promote the local flower shop and café who are also members. They in turn share the video in the same way, which promote them, and also the bakery and all other members of the Ontario Community Awareness Network. The network then grows stronger as more businesses join and help to promote the message of ‘Our Community United’. This is all accomplished by Barrie businesses doing nothing more than sharing our local videos on social media and adding a note to signify their support. The all-local advertisers who are associated with the positive stories are automatically linked to the good karma for the community.

In addition to attaining the brand recognition that is associated with any form of advertising, these local businesses are seen to support various local causes and benevolent organizations within the community simply through their association with the Ontario Community Awareness Network. They also spend less to reach their target potential customers with a positive and memorable message. Meanwhile charities and the community benefit from the exposure and free productions they can use to raise funds and educate the public.

It is a win-win-win situation.

Our video on this subject is currently in production,
so let's listen to an independent expert support exactly what we are doing.

The power of the Ontario Community Awareness Network is two-fold. The local programming attracts area viewers, and the structure of our network of local-only businesses ensures larger audiences who will see your brand. One post of an original local video on our Facebook page draws on average 5,000 views, which is about 50% of those reached on Facebook. We then also share it on YouTube, Instagram, and through Twitter.

So, how many local consumers will watch our programming and see your brand when the video is shared by a hundred businesses within the network; each of which will benefit directly from sharing our content? How long will it take before consumers subconsciously identify your business as one that cares for their community? For us, it started happening within a few months and it snowballed over time.

We are not saying that 100 shares of our programming will cause a reciprocal increase in viewership, but a ten-times boost is very conceivable. We base that on increases that have occurred when we shared Five Points Media content on the Facebook pages of 3B Solutions, Ontario Community Awareness Network, and a single client page. By utilizing the power of the network, we can project viewership of 50,000 people or more for each video, which are scheduled to be produced at a rate of 10 per month, or two community programs per week and two social documentaries released every second weekend. That equates to half a million people reached each month, and for a cost you will not believe.

Several of our videos have been viewed by more than 30,000 people, and that is just from one post on Facebook and then YouTube. Viewership will grow exponentially as more local businesses join the Ontario Community Awareness Network and share the programming they helped to make. Their friends, family, and customers do the rest as they share, like, or repost the local story on their social media. The average Facebook user has more than 150 online friends who see everything they like and share, and despite the international power of that massive social network, most friends are local to the user. Suddenly you are not dealing with tens of thousands of views, but a multitude more, and our shared message of ‘Our Community United’ suddenly reaches an almost incalculable number of local consumers.

We have produced charity and community videos for a plethora of organizations and groups too numerous to list. The full value of these services was donated by Five Points Media. Time and again the organizers credited us with causing their charity to raise tens of thousands of dollars from local residents who also noticed which businesses were helping the cause. In response, many of them have said thank you by hiring our commercial division to produce a training video, an event recording, or a promotional advertisement. We simply would not have been able to afford to donate more than 100 professional video productions had we not received a reciprocal increase in commercial business as a result. Ontario Community Awareness Network member businesses will share in that glow, and they should enjoy similar return on their investment.

Five Points Media is now fully recognized as a local media service providing community programming to Barrie and area. We regularly interview officials at every level of government, and we are frequently invited directly to cover charity, community, government, and even school events. However, unlike other media companies in our area, Five Points Media is a locally-focused and community-oriented media service with a mandate to help charities and the community in any way possible using video.

As such, we can offer a low-cost but high-reach alternative to standard media. We also maintain a low-overhead so that we do not suffer the fate of many local media providers. The sudden and unexpected loss of the Barrie Examiner last year is only one very real example. Since December of 2017, CTV has eliminated several key community features such as local sports, and we have also been hearing unconfirmed inside reports that more cuts are on the horizon. Community Access Channels provided by regional cable companies are also reducing their local programming as is evident from the cancellation of many popular shows and the recent dramatic reduction in production staff.

We do not support a future in which there is no local media. Nor do we want to subsist on feeds from central broadcasters. Not only is that scenario bad for local business, Barrie is a unique city that needs its own voice. We simply cannot allow ourselves to be absorbed into the media melting pot. The Ontario Community Awareness Network will give our community the voice it needs, and effective advertising options that work locally.

In addition to location-based programming, we are currently building a custom studio at our production facility that will be large enough to host talk shows, demonstration shows, and even political debates. We are also in the process of purchasing an online live video transmitter similar but more powerful than the one used by the local CTV affiliate. That will allow us to produce live shows and on-the-scene multi-camera broadcasts from any event anywhere. It also opens advertising and self-promotion options for businesses like restaurants who could use our new technology to produce entire shows focused on an issue shot in their kitchen.

The possibilities are truly unlimited.