Think about that in every single place you look, you’re bombarded with adverts for a similar model. Huge out-of-home adverts downtown. Homepage takeovers on each main information website. Takeovers on Instagram pages.
After which, 48 hours later – poof, the blitz is over.
This would possibly sound like a fever dream. However truly, that’s how Canadian CPG firm Maple Leaf Meals launched the primary section of its “Search for the Leaf” Marketing campaign in March as monetary uncertainty and frustration have been on the rise after the announcement of US tariffs.
The aim of the marketing campaign, in partnership with artistic company Fuse Create, was to emphasise Canadian delight by encouraging grocery customers throughout Canada to, actually, “search for the leaf” and purchase merchandise that includes the maple leaf icon that designates Canadian manufacturers.
The second section of the marketing campaign, which launched on the finish of June and is primarily operating nationwide OOH adverts, plus prolonged attain on information websites, will run by the tip of July.
There’s no ‘I’ in ‘Canada’
Since US tariffs went into impact in February, it’s been a significant speaking level on Canadian information websites, in keeping with Luke Moore, Fuse Create’s VP and managing director of media.
Industries, together with metal and automotive, have seen main slowdowns, Moore stated, triggering a wave of patriotism influencing the place Canadians need to spend their cash.
Maple Leaf Meals got down to orchestrate “a cultural occasion, not only a marketing campaign,” Moore advised AdExchanger. It seized on the sociopolitical second to foster unity, fairly than competitors by bringing consideration to all Canadian merchandise, not simply its personal.
The marketing campaign artistic throughout each phases was constant throughout the nation, and focused grocery customers in each English and French. It ran throughout digital out-of-home, digital media and print adverts.
Working a marketing campaign for under two days isn’t the norm in promoting. However Maple Leaf Meals “wished one thing unorthodox and disruptive,” he stated.
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And what’s extra disruptive than a nationwide takeover?
Only a quickie
The technique wasn’t simply distinctive – it was efficient. In these 48 hours, Moore stated, the marketing campaign reached two-thirds of Canadian grocery customers.
Virtually all of its digital purchase was made instantly with Canadian information publishers. Solely 5% was programmatic show, Moore stated, “to assist fill the information focusing on void.”
Though the “media flood,” as Moore referred to it, solely lasted for 48 hours, Maple Leaf Meals marketed at an unlimited scale inside that transient window. The model took over a lot of the massive digital billboards in Sankofa Sq. in Toronto, dominated advert area within the Meals & Beverage and Information & Schooling sections of Reddit and took over the entrance web page of main information websites.
Throughout this section, the out-of-home adverts have been positioned on “large-impact, mega-size screens” at simply two main vacation spot factors in Toronto: Sankofa Sq. and Union Station.
Maple Leaf Meals noticed an enduring bump in gross sales from its efforts, together with enhancements in different desired KPIs. Within the 30 days after section one ended, there was a greater than 3,000% enhance in on-line mentions and a 43% raise in model engagement.
As well as, dozens of Canadian manufacturers reached out to Maple Leaf Meals to say they wished to take part within the subsequent stage of the marketing campaign, which coincided with Canada Day on July 1.
The collaborative nature of the marketing campaign “helped mitigate aggressive pricing from opponents,” stated Moore, since there was much less of a must one-up the manufacturers that, traditionally, may need been seen as opposition. Name it a truce.
Half two was “basically taking [our] message to the streets,” stated Moore, with a give attention to out-of-home purchase and information media.
Maple Leaf expanded its OOH efforts past Toronto to areas all throughout the nation through the second section. Main markets, together with Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary, home most of Canada’s inhabitants, Moore defined, so out-of-home buys in these areas are notably efficient.
However what does “efficient” imply for such an unorthodox media plan?
Among the metrics for fulfillment have been “atypical” with this marketing campaign, Moore acknowledged.
“We wished to spark a buzz amongst Canadian manufacturers,” he stated, which is why Maple Leaf tracked inbound “curiosity and requests” from competitor manufacturers as an vital measure of success.
And it wasn’t stunning that so many manufacturers wished to take part. The latest and ongoing geopolitical tumult has sparked a “big wave of ‘buy-Canadian’ nationwide sentiment,” stated Moore.
Maple Leaf Meals didn’t create that, he stated, it simply discovered one of the best ways to propel the momentum ahead.
