2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

It won’t come as a shock that most Torontonians seek out news on social media channels versus traditional news platforms (millennials: 66%, gen Z: 85%). As a result, when polled, ‘Canadians who pay for digital subscriptions dropped from 15% to 11% YOY.

Falling subscriptions had started to really impact The Toronto Star, a well-known news organization desperately trying to distinguish itself in digital media’s noisy landscape.

The brand needed to cut through clickbait, virality-seeking headlines in a way that stopped Torontonians in their tracks and reminded them that real journalism still held value worth going out of their way for.

To successfully have great impact in a major market like Toronto/GTA, typically paid media spend needs to be north of $1M minimum. A big part of the brand’s strategy was to achieve high impact at low paid cost: instead of buying hundreds of boards across the city, the brand focused on more strategic, targeted, and impactful placements. Typically, in the category the brand’s competitors outspend the brand by 300%.

The objectives were to remind people that the Toronto Star was still an active member of the community – even online. And that nobody reported on and investigated the city like they did.

The campaign activation goals were to increase digital subscriptions to The Toronto Star, reversing year-over-year downward trends and increase traffic to the Toronto Star’s digital channels signaling Torontonians desire to digest real news.

Real journalism keeps people connected to their community.

Research showed 47% of Canadians reported feeling a strong sense of belonging to their community and 70% agreed that they value their local media “because it covers what’s happening in [their] community.”

It was clear that Torontonians, much like The Star, cared about being plugged into their city. They simply needed to be reminded that someone was out there diligently covering stories that impacted their
postal code.

The whole point of this effort was to show how deeply entrenched in their communities The Star was – and what better way to do that than featuring topics that over-indexed in relevance to urban Toronto & millennials: Gun Violence, Climate Change, a Lack of Accessibility, Privacy Violations, Obesity Care, Economic Uncertainty, and Teen Vaping.

This wasn’t about appealing to the masses; it was showing urban Toronto and its millennials that they had news they needed to know.

Bring back the brand’s uniquely ownable icon for credible reporting – the OG blue newspaper boxes, rebranded as “truth boxes”.

The blue news boxes were an antithesis to digital media on every front – they were as real as the stories told, it represented a better time in journalism versus today’s glance & scroll, and were a uniquely familiar hello to a generation the brand hoped hadn’t forgotten them.

Seven boxes were modified to visually represent a locally relevant story that scanning a QR code would redirect you to. Truth box placements were strategically contextualized to drive home the message – ‘Obesity Care’ was near hospitals, ‘Gun Violence’ by East End nightclubs, ‘Economic Uncertainty’ found a spot in the Financial District, and ‘Privacy Violations’, a home outside police stations!

Overnight multiple “truth boxes” emerged across Toronto. Designed to shock Torontonians with clever story-telling redesigns to the brand’s iconic blue newspaper boxes; the brand invited people walking by to immediately stop, subscribe and read on.

The brand strategically placed “truth boxes” in high-traffic areas where the brand’s stories reflecting problems/topics that specific community faced, reminding people of the power local reporting held.

The QR codes made accessing the news immediate and digital – creating space for The Star online without losing the brand’s essence – community journalism that matters.

The forgotten Toronto Star news boxes grew into the brand’s most progressive brand touchpoint – extending their role in consumers' lives and actively helping them engage with their content. Most notably, the brand turned a distinctly non-digital (and forgotten) channel into the brand’s biggest driver for digital subscriptions.

There was a 25% increase in new subscriptions within the first month and an average subscriber value of ~$25 per month. This suggests a first month campaign value of close to $1 Mn. A huge boost to an organization that was used to seeing MoM declines in subscriptions.

MoM subscriptions steadily climbed following the campaign, leading to an overall rise of more than 40%.

In the first calendar year, the brand’s guerilla activation with $0 media spends had an ROI of 1175%. But if you factor in the average subscription tenure – 3.4 years – that raises the ROI to 4360%.

Even non-subscriber traffic on the brand’s digital pages saw more than 33% increase. That meant those same social media users were now choosing to visit The Star for their daily dose of news.

Credits

Agency: Leo Burnett, Toronto
Client: Toronto Star

Creative Agency: Leo Burnett, Toronto
President: Ben Tarr
Co-Chief Creative Officers: Steve Persico, Lisa Greenberg
Managing Director, Account Services: Natasha Dagenais
Chief Strategy Officer: Tahir Ahmad
Group Strategy Director: Pooja Beri
Group Account Director: Kirk Round
Account Supervisor: Sim Singh
Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Appanna Chetranda
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Natee Likitsuwankool
VP, Co Production Director: Melanie Palmer
Integrated Project Manager: Sama Karam

Production: Get Wrapped
Director, Product Management: Charlie Elliott
Owner: Niek Ermes

Studio: The Pub Productions
Executive Producer: Terry Theofilactidis
Photographer: Alex Chan

Production: Blue Noise
Managing Director: Scott Walker
Creative Director: Kendra Schumaker