2022 Winner

Destination Ontario

Discover Together

FCB

BronzeContent Strategy

Tourism plays a critical role in Ontario’s economy. Pre-pandemic, the tourism industry generated more than $36 billion annually, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in the province. As one of the first industries to shut down – and one of the last to begin recovery – the pandemic has been catastrophic to the industry, here in Ontario, and across the globe.

As borders began to reopen, every single tourism board across the planet was eager to bring back international travellers and convince them to travel to their region for their first big trip in two years.

How could Ontario – a small, relatively unknown destination on the global stage – compete with
everything the world has to offer?

Travel has undergone a major shift; rather than being about inner, personal growth it is now driven by outward connections and togetherness.

They decided to tap into the people who needed togetherness more than anyone: friends and family who
had not been together in over two years. They positioned Ontario as the perfect place
for their post-COVID reunions.

Introducing Discover Together, an integrated campaign targeting European travellers with a connection to Canada. To engage their target, they created emotional stories told by their loved ones
who had resettled in Ontario.

The campaign started with a series of films on YouTube and social media that focused on newcomers to Ontario, taking a journey across the province, highlighting all of the experiences they hope to soon take their families on, as soon as the opportunity arises.

Because people are more likely to take travel advice from those that they trust, they created even more digital content from these newcomers, highlighting individual activities and unexpected finds. They targeted these pieces based on interest and location data. So if you are in London and you love food – they served you content from Brits living in Ontario, going to their favourite Toronto restaurants.

Finally, when their target indicated that they were interested in what Ontario has to offer, market-specific landing pages generated custom travel itineraries with offers from their tour operators. They used quick, thumb-stopping videos and stills from their YouTube videos to connect back to the original awareness pieces and drive people to those custom landing pages on the Ontario Tourism website.

They perfectly timed the release of their campaign to inspire travel at the exact moment international restrictions began to lift. This strategy, together with their insight and emotionally driven creative helped the Discover Together campaign to be a major success. 23% of all people who saw their content travelled or booked a trip to Ontario as a result of the campaign, while 18% of people who saw their content are now planning a trip to Ontario. There was a 298% increase in likeliness to search for Ontario, Canada. They overachieved Completed Video View benchmark rates by 32%.

Credits
Client: Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation
Lisa LaVecchia: President & CEO
Debra Mansillo: Vice President of Industry Relations & International Marketing
Elizabeth Knox: Director, International Marketing
Stephanie Freed-Burns: Global Content Manager

Agency Credits: FCB Toronto

Bryan Kane: President
Nancy Crimi-Lamanna: Chief Creative Officer
Tracy Little: EVP, General Manager

Creative Team:
Guilherme Bermejo: Associate Creative Director
Nick Doerr: Associate Creative Director

Account Team:
Sarah Banks: VP, Business Director
Britt Garland: Account Director
Lauren Reinhart: Account Director

Planner:
Shelley Brown: VP, Chief Strategy Officer
Sheligh Hartford: Strategy Director
Daisy Qin: Sr. Social Content Strategist
Karlne Antoine: Consumer Insights Manager

Producer:
Barb Gibson: Sr. Broadcast Producer

IPG Health Germany
Maximilian Lechner: EVP, President

Media Credits - Initiative Media
Olivier Leblond: Vice President, Client Advice & Management
Riaz Backer: Group Account Director, Communications Design
Andrew Ouellette: Manager, Communications Design
Dan Mudry: Supervisor, Communications Design
Sarah Sime: Director Project Management
Manjeet Kaur Saini: Project Manager
Stephanie Freeman: Manager, Strategy
Samantha Rosenberg: Manager, Content Strategy
Rachel Giffen: Senior Content Strategist
Chris Gairdner: Head of Content

Production Credits

Production Company: Film Forge
Karen Harnisch: Executive Producer
Andrew Cividino: Director
James Klopko: DOP

Editing House: Rooster Post Production
Marc Langley: Editor
Sam McLaren: Executive Producer

Transfer Facility: Alter Ego
Eric Whipp: Colourist

Online Facility: Fort York VFX
Mike Bishop: Creative Director
Erica Bourgault-Assaf: Executive Producer
Luke White: On-Line Artist

Music House: Eggplant Audio & Sound
Adam Damelin: Music Track Director
Nicola Treadgold: Executive Producer
Adam Damelin & Jeffrey Elliott: Composers
Nathan Handly: Engineer

For submission inquiries, please contact Clare O'Brien at cobrien@brunico.com.
For partnership inquiries, please contact Neil Ewen at newen@brunico.com.