2024 Winner
GoldBest in OOH Platforms - Budget Over $100,000
GoldBest in Finance and Services
GoldPlanning with Purpose
BMO
"Rainbow Deposits X
Pride Placements"
UM / FCB
"Rainbow Deposits X
Pride Placements"
UM / FCB
BMO is consistently ranked among the most diverse and inclusive employers in the world, which is a testament to their commitment towards inclusion. This includes a 5-year goal to increase workforce representation of 2SLGBTQ+ employees and establishing policies and initiatives to ensure that customers are welcomed and recognized for who they are and how they identify.
During Pride, rainbows are everywhere. While the rainbow has become an important part of spreading awareness for the 2SLGBTQ+ community, consumers are increasingly criticizing brands for ‘rainbow-washing’ – an empty gesture of slapping rainbows on corporate logos without
providing tangible support.
Over the last two years: BMO has found a way to demonstrate actionable allyship with Pride support. By developing a first-of-its-kind web app, BMO unlocked the ability for users to take a picture of any rainbow, then deposit it just like you would deposit a mobile cheque, in turn, hijacking other brands’ potential rainbow-washing for true, purposeful action.
Through “Rainbow Deposits”, BMO has turned a symbol of pride into a symbol of action: for every rainbow ‘deposited,’ BMO donates $1 to The Rainbow Railroad, an international, non-profit organization that helps bring thousands of 2SLGBTQ+ people facing persecution to safety every year.
This year: In 2024, with rainbow-washing still rampant, but Pride feeling slightly less present and supported, BMO needed a fresh way to remind people they could still deposit all those rainbows. So, in the brand’s ongoing commitment to Pride innovation, they created yet another new media touchpoint to facilitate their on-going initiative, while injecting a bit more Pride into the world: “Pride Placements”.
The agency developed custom OOH ads that were designed, like wild postings, to be dynamic and scrappy in their placement. Designed to be placed near more obvious instances of rainbow-washing, but also to inject some Pride in areas that had otherwise lost a bit of their Pride spirit.
With these adjacent placements, the brand turned existing rainbows into new media channels; transforming them into part of the campaign so that they could be deposited for a donation. As in past years, each rainbow deposited as part of the campaign represented a $1 donation to
the Rainbow Railroad.
BMO made sure to include rainbows both big and small, in high traffic areas, with maximum visibility. This included adjacent to rainbow road signs, rainbow landmarks, rainbow planters, rainbows bike racks, rainbow crosswalks, and rainbow flags to name a few.
Meta, TikTok and Snapchat drove additional mass awareness in key markets across North America, with strategically timed flights to align with each markets’ respective Pride Parade when rainbows would be at their maximum.
Further, Drag Queens and 2SLGBTQ+ identifying influencers demonstrated how to deposit rainbows in engaging videos and lent an authentic voice to the initiative. Additional OOH placements in key markets’ gay villages, as well as BMO branch wraps and small business window-decals, called attention to the campaign and turned ad units into rainbows for depositing. While wild postings and walking billboards intercepted Pride Parade goers as well.
All donation data was visualized on the campaign website in the “Rainbow Deposit Box” to show how many rainbows had been deposited, in real time. This created the sense of a movement to incentivize people to deposit rainbows, as people are more likely to donate the “last dollar” than the first.
While OOH as a channel is not new, finding new placements and executions to coincide with existing pride rainbows, and the context to which they have been deployed, certainly is!
These placements were not comprised of off-the-shelf OOH locations. They were unexpected and gave passersby pause to absorb the custom messaging deployed to the adjacent rainbow, acting as
double-duty with impact.
The biggest example of this was transforming the CN Tower into a first-ever new media channel through a custom drone show, flying above the Toronto skyline that took the shape of a giant, unmissable arrow that pointed to the CN Tower, with text that instructed consumers to “deposit this rainbow,” and a QR code that consumers could use to deposit the rainbow lights from the CN Tower.
In essence, the brand replicated the functionality of contextual display banner ad (driving low funnel action in a digital world) and applied it to the physical world; transforming the possibilities of a physical tried and-true awareness medium into so much more.
By turning places of Pride into “Pride Placements”, donations increased 1293% year-over-year during Pride weekend, leading to a total of $50,000 in donations in 2024 to The Rainbow Railroad.
BMO successfully continued momentum to upend the industry drive to face-value-action alone in favour of tangible, real-world impact for the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Through Pride Placements, BMO has not only continued to be a voice for better, but a spark for action – using the window dressing of others to in turn help 2SLGBTQ+ individuals escape persecution through The Rainbow Railroad.
During Pride, rainbows are everywhere. While the rainbow has become an important part of spreading awareness for the 2SLGBTQ+ community, consumers are increasingly criticizing brands for ‘rainbow-washing’ – an empty gesture of slapping rainbows on corporate logos without
providing tangible support.
Over the last two years: BMO has found a way to demonstrate actionable allyship with Pride support. By developing a first-of-its-kind web app, BMO unlocked the ability for users to take a picture of any rainbow, then deposit it just like you would deposit a mobile cheque, in turn, hijacking other brands’ potential rainbow-washing for true, purposeful action.
Through “Rainbow Deposits”, BMO has turned a symbol of pride into a symbol of action: for every rainbow ‘deposited,’ BMO donates $1 to The Rainbow Railroad, an international, non-profit organization that helps bring thousands of 2SLGBTQ+ people facing persecution to safety every year.
This year: In 2024, with rainbow-washing still rampant, but Pride feeling slightly less present and supported, BMO needed a fresh way to remind people they could still deposit all those rainbows. So, in the brand’s ongoing commitment to Pride innovation, they created yet another new media touchpoint to facilitate their on-going initiative, while injecting a bit more Pride into the world: “Pride Placements”.
The agency developed custom OOH ads that were designed, like wild postings, to be dynamic and scrappy in their placement. Designed to be placed near more obvious instances of rainbow-washing, but also to inject some Pride in areas that had otherwise lost a bit of their Pride spirit.
With these adjacent placements, the brand turned existing rainbows into new media channels; transforming them into part of the campaign so that they could be deposited for a donation. As in past years, each rainbow deposited as part of the campaign represented a $1 donation to
the Rainbow Railroad.
BMO made sure to include rainbows both big and small, in high traffic areas, with maximum visibility. This included adjacent to rainbow road signs, rainbow landmarks, rainbow planters, rainbows bike racks, rainbow crosswalks, and rainbow flags to name a few.
Meta, TikTok and Snapchat drove additional mass awareness in key markets across North America, with strategically timed flights to align with each markets’ respective Pride Parade when rainbows would be at their maximum.
Further, Drag Queens and 2SLGBTQ+ identifying influencers demonstrated how to deposit rainbows in engaging videos and lent an authentic voice to the initiative. Additional OOH placements in key markets’ gay villages, as well as BMO branch wraps and small business window-decals, called attention to the campaign and turned ad units into rainbows for depositing. While wild postings and walking billboards intercepted Pride Parade goers as well.
All donation data was visualized on the campaign website in the “Rainbow Deposit Box” to show how many rainbows had been deposited, in real time. This created the sense of a movement to incentivize people to deposit rainbows, as people are more likely to donate the “last dollar” than the first.
While OOH as a channel is not new, finding new placements and executions to coincide with existing pride rainbows, and the context to which they have been deployed, certainly is!
These placements were not comprised of off-the-shelf OOH locations. They were unexpected and gave passersby pause to absorb the custom messaging deployed to the adjacent rainbow, acting as
double-duty with impact.
The biggest example of this was transforming the CN Tower into a first-ever new media channel through a custom drone show, flying above the Toronto skyline that took the shape of a giant, unmissable arrow that pointed to the CN Tower, with text that instructed consumers to “deposit this rainbow,” and a QR code that consumers could use to deposit the rainbow lights from the CN Tower.
In essence, the brand replicated the functionality of contextual display banner ad (driving low funnel action in a digital world) and applied it to the physical world; transforming the possibilities of a physical tried and-true awareness medium into so much more.
By turning places of Pride into “Pride Placements”, donations increased 1293% year-over-year during Pride weekend, leading to a total of $50,000 in donations in 2024 to The Rainbow Railroad.
BMO successfully continued momentum to upend the industry drive to face-value-action alone in favour of tangible, real-world impact for the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Through Pride Placements, BMO has not only continued to be a voice for better, but a spark for action – using the window dressing of others to in turn help 2SLGBTQ+ individuals escape persecution through The Rainbow Railroad.
Credits
MEDIA AGENCY: UMExecutive Vice President: Ryan Hunter
Director, Connection Planning: Marc-Andre Giasson
Manager, Portfolio Management: Vidyaa Bhoopsingh
Senior Planner, Connection Planning: Ben Graham
Assistant, Connection Planning: Claudia Fernandes
Account Manager, Social, Cristian Garrido
Manager, Content Strategist: Melissa Hoffman
CLIENT: BMO
Chief Marketing Officer: Catherine Roche
Head, Brand, Enterprise Social and Content: Jennifer Carli
Director, Brand Management & Enterprise Marketing: Mallory Fantham
Senior Marketing Manager, Enterprise Marketing & Content: Ivana Dillon
Marketing Manager, Brand & Sponsorship Advertising: Ann-Marie Beauchemin
Marketing Manager, Brand, Quebec: Camille Larose
Assistant Marketing Manager, Enterprise Marketing & Content: Aidan Bonner
CREATIVE AGENCY: FCB
EVP, General Manager: Tracy Little
VP, Client Service Lead: Erin Howes
Group Account Director: Ali Gayowski
Account Supervisor: Caiti Murray
Account Executive: Amarah Ali
Account Director: Michael Watier
Account Executive: Isabelle Dion
Chief Strategy Officer: Shelley Brown
VP, Strategy Director: Mary Judges
Senior Strategist: Ally Dwyer-Joyce
Chief Creative Officer: Nancy Crimi-Lamanna
Executive Creative Director: Jeremiah McNama
Executive Creative Director: Andrew MacPhee
ACD, Writer: Coleman Mallory
Senior Art Director: Sanna Kula
Integrated Producer: Anastasia Gal