Now Exporting More Canada: Iconic Canadian images inflight

Canada is known for its wild spaces — our wild animals are connected to our national identity. This ad for Westjet taps into that identity as a metaphor for Canadians traveling abroad. With more destinations outside of Canada than inside, Westjet is evolving from its commuter airliner roots into an ambassador for Canada internationally.

Westjet’s new maple leaf logo is a Canadian-inspired symbol to reflect this new international evolution. This campaign taps into their transition to project Westjet as Canadian as maple syrup.

Maple Flights

Nothing is more Canadian than the maple leaf. This is why WestJet chose it for their new branding and why this plane is made out of maple leafs. Again, reinforcing Westjet is Canada’s airline.

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Complete The Lock Installation: A new advertising opportunity and business line

With the removal of individual parking poles across North American, cyclists lost a favoured spot for locking their bikes. Cities are replacing their parking meters with post-and-ring bike stands. It is not the most usable design and there are often not enough stands on city streets.

The lock pole is an integral part of the bike locking process. A negative interaction on one end affects the entire experience. By installing Kryptonite branded bike stands, Kryptonite could improve the design, increase the stock of bike poles on city streets and market their product with free advertising.

Positioning the campaign

This campaign positions Kryptonite as stepping into the chaos of civic politics to fight for complete streets — streets that are designed to be safe for pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and people who drive. Kryptonite positions itself as taking a stand against the war on the bike – yes it is ‘punny’.

Kryptonite is the complete lock and now the user can complete the lock with Kryptonite’s help.

Poster stand

The stand could also be mounted onto posters, in locations where they can be securely bolted to the wall.

kryptonite-poster-v2

Social ecosystem

The social content marketing can be built around the ecosystem of telling stories about complete streets, how cyclists are fighting for their rights, pointing out how cyclists are disadvantaged on city streets and how Kryptonite’s effort to provide bike stands helps solve problems for cyclists.
kryptonite-take-a-stand-v2

At the very least, the installation campaign would create an advertising opportunity and solve a problem for Kryptonite’s users, but the idea could be expanded to become a new business line.

New Business Opportunity

Kryptonite could partner with bike stores to install the Kryptonite-branded U-lock bike stand in front of their shops. Patrons would get a space to lock their bikes and Kryptonite would get free advertising. From there, Kryptonite could target high-use areas and work with local businesses to provide more locking spaces for their customers.

Due to the advertising potential, Kryptonite could undercut current bike pole suppliers with lower prices, saving cash-strapped municipalities money. If bike shelters can be contracted out as marketing vehicles, why not bike stands?

This idea has the potential to cement the Kryptonite brand as the premier bike lock company.

 

 

 

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Unwrap Wonder: Small chocolate with big ego and self-depreciation

Unwrapping a Hershey’s Kiss when you are young is a special moment – it is a mini present containing delicious milk chocolate. This ad campaign takes the feeling of that unwrapping wonder and transposes it to the Wonder of the Worlds. Along with this campaign is a digital experience using augmented reality to get users to unwrap wonder to win!

Wonders of the world

Humans have created awe-inspiring creations, none more impressive than the Pyramids of Giza and the Taj Mahal. The the first ad (above), the pyramid transforms into the Kiss and in the second ad, the crowning dome of the Taj Mahal is shaped like a kiss.

Transforming a bite-sized chocolate into a Wonder of a World, is ridiculous. Playing off the ridiculousness, the add mocks the comparison, while at the same time downplays the self-depreciation with the insertion of the word “minor.” So this ad in effect says hey were not quite a wonder of the world, but you know like right up there with the big boys.

Augmented reality experience: Unwrap wonder to win

A digital tie-in for the Unwrap Wonder campaign would harness the augmented reality app Blippar to get users to engage with the campaign to win prizes. The prizes could all relate to wonder, such a trip to Canada’s Wonderland, trips to Wonders of World locations, meet Stevie Wonder, Wonder Woman LA opener, etc.

The below GIF captures the user actions required to Unwrap Wonder to Win. Download Blippar and point it a Hershey’s kiss to see if you have won.

unwrap wonder to win: augmented reality campaign tie in

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More and Better: Connecting the abstract concept of biodiversity to the tangible

Living in a biodiverse world with robust species, genetic and ecosystem diversity will result in many tangible benefits to society from pharmaceuticals development, clean water, better food, a buffer against climate change and more. It is not an easy concept to get your head around when you are talking about rock climbers getting banned from a park or removing tracks of land, rich in minerals, from development.

This WWF Canada campaign aims to help connect the abstract concept of biodiversity to the tangible through something everyone can understand – we all drink water from a glass. What brings us natural clean water is the same thing that keeps the forests healthy, animals running and fish swimming.

 

 

 

 

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Welcome to the New: the technology, price and performance you’ve been waiting for

With the introduction of the new Tesla Model 3, an affordable high-end electric car, this ad campaign promotes the new zero-emission technology as the innovation we’ve been waiting for. While the cost will be a major signal for people, making the transition to an electric car will require more than just a price tag. This campaign helps emphasize the technology as the logical next step in our technological progress to help move the consumer from the status quo to the future.

Get the performance you’re due

The first ad in the series (above) visualizes the Model 3’s acceleration speed (zero to 100 km/h in 3 seconds) on an odometer with the acceleration speeds of other low-carbon modes of transport (cheetah, man, turkey and tree). It’s having some fun, while also subtly not putting the car on the same spectrum as other gas-powered cars. Rather, the car competes with the spectrum of speed found in the natural environment. It is the evolution of speed. The message is adapt or get left behind.

Smart phones don’t run on gas, and neither should you

The next ad putting a gas engine on a smartphone helps the viewer understand the connection of the electric car innovation in context with their own adoption of smartphone technology. The future is battery powered and the electric car will soon do to gas-powered cars what smartphones did to landlines: make them obsolete.

tesla-smart-phones-gas-welcome-to-new

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Signs of Summer: Evoking classic images of summer to motivate

The Signs of Summer is a mock seasonal marketing campaign perfect for large retailers like Canadian Tire to advertise their summer goods. The ads, evoking the images of summer, help get people thinking about summer living and the products they need to help take advantage of the season.

Air pump

The first Signs of Summer ad (above) gets viewers tuned into summer through an image of a gas station air pump. A place many of us visit at the start of summer to inflate our bike tires or basketballs. It’s an annual ritual for most Canadians looking to get active outdoors with summer activities after a long winter.

Suntan at the beach

We all have been there, once the good weather comes, we hit the beach a little too hard and get that first tan (no the red will turn brown, yah for sure) of the summer. The ad plays on that all-too-familiar experience to get the viewer thinking about what they need to hit the beach to enjoy their summer.

cdn-tire-signs-tans-results-in-action

Social: show us your signs

The signs of summer social tie-in would look to get on-line users engaged with sharing their own signs of summer to win a summer prize pack. Alternatively, various promotional physical signs could be strategically located across various participating cities to get users to find the signs to be entered into draws to win big. This action could be cross-promoted through the Amazing Race-type companies catering to corporations and the general public.

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