U ndoubtedly the famous studio moniker will go a long way towards raising consumer awareness and building an audience for Astral Media’s new preschool net Playhouse Disney Canada, but a little marketing never hurt.

The launch campaign is planning to deliver approximately 29 million impressions in a country with a population that tops out at 34 million. So before the channel goes live on November 30, Canadian kids ages two to seven and their parents should be in the know, unless they’ve been hanging out on an ice floe somewhere north of 60.

Astral’s consumer marketing manager for Playhouse Disney, Paul Cormack, has planned an ad buy across the nation’s parenting and kid-friendly websites and magazines, radio, television, outdoor and in-theater marketing platforms. Additionally, Disney’s non-channel divisions have been pitching in for promos.

Courtesy of Disney Parks, Playhouse Disney Canada is giving away a family vacation to Disney World through a contest running in conjunction with retailer Mexx Kids. Game cards will be available at the chain’s cash registers across the country, directing kids and parents to the net’s website to complete an electronic entry. Disney Consumer Products has also supplied plenty of licensed goodies to give to kids attending the ‘Flip the Switch’ breakfast event, where radio contest winners will get to attend the channel’s launch into 5.5 million Canadian households.

This activity, says Cormack, should beef up the presence of the commercial-free channel through to February. By that time, he hopes to have some longer-term promotional partnerships in the works that mirror those that Playhouse Disney has with Scholastic and the YMCA in the US. ‘We want to use the brand to get involved in kids lives and make learning fun,’ he says. For example, the US Scholastic program provides learning materials and school supplies sporting the channel’s lead properties to the nation’s classrooms.