2021 Winner
BronzeBest in Social Media
Government of Canada
(Veterans Affairs Canada)
"#CanadaRemembers"
Cossette Media
(Veterans Affairs Canada)
"#CanadaRemembers"
Cossette Media
For their annual Remembrance Day campaign, Veterans Affairs Canada wanted to engage Millennials in the commemoration of Veterans. However, as younger generations have limited connection to military conflict, they knew these generations were less inclined to participate in acts of remembrance. The agency’s mission: engage Millennials, and achieve an assisted awareness rate of 44%.
The key to their success was gaining insights into their targets’ motivations. While veterans issues don’t necessarily resonate with Millennials, research showed Millennials are willing to act for causes that are close to their hearts. Additionally, they knew that Millennials generally showcase their participation in good causes and value peer recognition. Armed with these insights, they designed an innovative solution that modernized Remembrance Day, bringing acts of remembrance to life on digital platforms.
In order to bring their strategy to life, Twitter and Snapchat were selected as primary platforms due to their targeted reach and creative ad formats. They knew that every act of remembrance needed to be shareable and that the ad formats had to be native to each platform to maximize participation. Before they could ask Millennials to act, they had to first create a meaningful connection
between them and veterans.
They humanized the cause by inviting a veteran to participate in a Twitter conversation where thousands had the opportunity to ask live questions, resulting in a better understanding of Veterans’ reality and why support is paramount to former soldiers. The "Question & Answer" format on Twitter had never been used by Veterans Affairs. In less than 7 days, they had found a bilingual, charismatic veteran who was ready and willing to participate in the activity and answer live questions.
Given that youth value the content they share, it was important to encourage shareable formats, maximizing participation. They used the mechanics of "Heart to Remind," where users had to Like the Tweet to receive a reminder of their commitment on November 11th. On Snapchat, a filter and Lens offered a simple way to take a minute of silence at a time that was convenient for them. This allowed a show of support for veterans, making it shareable with friends, and inviting them to also take part.
Since the selected formats had different sharing actions, the major challenge was coordinating the different executions (and partners) in a short period of time. The agency ensured that each piece was technically feasible, met the client's requirements and remained consistent with their respective media objectives. Thus, they supervised the production process to ensure timely delivery. Given the short duration of the campaign, they couldn't miss or shift the launch date.
For Snapchat, they ensured that the creatives were aligned with the types of content their target engaged with on this platform. Their involvement was necessary from the very start of the creative concepts, to ensure that the mechanics of the products were natural to the Snapchat environment. In short, they leveraged the quality of their partner relationships, negotiation and coordination skills to meet the vision of all stakeholders in the short time frame available.
The resulting campaign not only surpassed the client’s objectives, but broke through the media industry benchmarks for social engagement. Remembrance Day dominated the conversation on Twitter. The campaign spurred a more than 20% increase in conversation volume compared to 2018, contributing to a 122% increase in positive sentiment mentions around veterans, and a 65% decrease in negative mentions. Additionally, in a matter of days, thanks to the "Q&A format," the conversation between the veteran and the target generated over 60K engagements. On Snapchat, the filter was shared 170K times, recording 3.5M organic impressions, from 1.5M users (in under 10 days). The "Lens" format, meanwhile, was shared 50K times, for 800K organic impressions from 450K users (remarkable for only being active on November 11). In all, the Snapchat campaign generated twice as much organic visibility as paid visibility. This allowed them to reach a large portion of their target audience with messages that were even more credible and authentic because they came
from their reference community.
Finally, the client's preferred metric, assisted recall rate, reached the expected level. As an added bonus, when looking specifically at the social media campaign, there was a 126% growth on this same metric, proof that they effectively closed the generational gap by motivating millennials to show their support, and offering them the opportunity to take action through authentic gestures on their
favorite social platforms.
The key to their success was gaining insights into their targets’ motivations. While veterans issues don’t necessarily resonate with Millennials, research showed Millennials are willing to act for causes that are close to their hearts. Additionally, they knew that Millennials generally showcase their participation in good causes and value peer recognition. Armed with these insights, they designed an innovative solution that modernized Remembrance Day, bringing acts of remembrance to life on digital platforms.
In order to bring their strategy to life, Twitter and Snapchat were selected as primary platforms due to their targeted reach and creative ad formats. They knew that every act of remembrance needed to be shareable and that the ad formats had to be native to each platform to maximize participation. Before they could ask Millennials to act, they had to first create a meaningful connection
between them and veterans.
They humanized the cause by inviting a veteran to participate in a Twitter conversation where thousands had the opportunity to ask live questions, resulting in a better understanding of Veterans’ reality and why support is paramount to former soldiers. The "Question & Answer" format on Twitter had never been used by Veterans Affairs. In less than 7 days, they had found a bilingual, charismatic veteran who was ready and willing to participate in the activity and answer live questions.
Given that youth value the content they share, it was important to encourage shareable formats, maximizing participation. They used the mechanics of "Heart to Remind," where users had to Like the Tweet to receive a reminder of their commitment on November 11th. On Snapchat, a filter and Lens offered a simple way to take a minute of silence at a time that was convenient for them. This allowed a show of support for veterans, making it shareable with friends, and inviting them to also take part.
Since the selected formats had different sharing actions, the major challenge was coordinating the different executions (and partners) in a short period of time. The agency ensured that each piece was technically feasible, met the client's requirements and remained consistent with their respective media objectives. Thus, they supervised the production process to ensure timely delivery. Given the short duration of the campaign, they couldn't miss or shift the launch date.
For Snapchat, they ensured that the creatives were aligned with the types of content their target engaged with on this platform. Their involvement was necessary from the very start of the creative concepts, to ensure that the mechanics of the products were natural to the Snapchat environment. In short, they leveraged the quality of their partner relationships, negotiation and coordination skills to meet the vision of all stakeholders in the short time frame available.
The resulting campaign not only surpassed the client’s objectives, but broke through the media industry benchmarks for social engagement. Remembrance Day dominated the conversation on Twitter. The campaign spurred a more than 20% increase in conversation volume compared to 2018, contributing to a 122% increase in positive sentiment mentions around veterans, and a 65% decrease in negative mentions. Additionally, in a matter of days, thanks to the "Q&A format," the conversation between the veteran and the target generated over 60K engagements. On Snapchat, the filter was shared 170K times, recording 3.5M organic impressions, from 1.5M users (in under 10 days). The "Lens" format, meanwhile, was shared 50K times, for 800K organic impressions from 450K users (remarkable for only being active on November 11). In all, the Snapchat campaign generated twice as much organic visibility as paid visibility. This allowed them to reach a large portion of their target audience with messages that were even more credible and authentic because they came
from their reference community.
Finally, the client's preferred metric, assisted recall rate, reached the expected level. As an added bonus, when looking specifically at the social media campaign, there was a 126% growth on this same metric, proof that they effectively closed the generational gap by motivating millennials to show their support, and offering them the opportunity to take action through authentic gestures on their
favorite social platforms.
Credits
ClientGovernment of Canada - Veterans Affairs Canada:
Senior communications advisor: Brent Matheson
Senior communications advisor: Jennifer Ellis
Media Agency
Cossette Media:
Account Director: Adriana Novoa
Media Strategy: Jean-Philippe Masse, Nelly El Khoury
Media Activation: Éric Migneault, Marjorie Brousseau
Creative Agency
Feast Interactive
Creative Direction: Rob Vena
Strategy: Lucia Mariani
Media Partners
Representatives: Greg Gerber, Amanda Kitts