Coca-Cola Canada is helping Canadians open some extra happiness this summer with its newest campaign, which is celebrating and encouraging random acts of kindness.
With creative by Zulu Alpha Kilo, experiential by Mosaic, social media and digital by Gravity, shopper marketing by The Hive and media by UM, Carolyn Harty, senior brand manager, Coca-Cola, says that the campaign is multi-targeted, with each touch-point designed to reach a specific demographic.
The brand’s experiential activations, which include appearances at events, are targeted primarily at teens, while POS executions, which include special “Open Happiness” packaging, are targeted at moms. For instance, the brand built pre-buzz for the campaign with an appearance at the MMVAs in June where it hosted a movie night and pancake breakfast for people lined up for wristbands. Fans can also track the brand team’s next appearance on Twitter and Facebook.
The campaign relies heavily on TV spots, which will air on channels like CTV, Global and TVA and depict security camera-style footage of random acts of kindness. The TV buys are supported by OOH in major markets including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, and ads on Facebook and YouTube.
The campaign also highlights three young Canadians who exemplify the theme of random acts of kindness and have launched their own charities. The highlighted Canadians include 16-year-old Calgary native Sheliza Kassam, who started Make a Wish, a non-profit organization that throws birthday parties for children living in shelters and Winnipeg teen Nathan Unrau, who started Brown Baggin’ It, an organization that donates 450 paper bag lunches to Winnipeg’s homeless shelters every other Saturday.
Coca-Cola Canada is encouraging more good deeds by introducing the Open Happiness Project, a program that gave 22 aspiring filmmakers $2,000 or $3,000 grants to make videos that document other acts of kindness.
Hearty says the campaign was based, in part, on a 2012 study from The Futures Group, which suggested that about 71% of Canadians believe it’s their responsibility to help make the world a better place.
She says that while TV and digital buys were used as the cornerstones of the campaign to help ensure mass reach and awareness, the reliance on experiential events and the Open Happiness project are part of the brand’s new socially oriented strategy.
She adds that the goal is to extend the storytelling and conversation beyond traditional media buys by engaging consumers and aspiring filmmakers and making them content creators with the brand.
The campaign will run for the rest of the summer.
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Photo: still from Jordan Yordanov’s Open Happiness Project film
