DDB Canada was tasked with breathing new life into the Royal Alberta Museum for its move into new downtown Edmonton digs after a threeyear closure. The campaign included a new logo and pop ups of large packing crates throughout the city to build buzz for the opening and drive visits.
Seventy-five years after iconic US-based agency DDB was formed, its Canadian counterpart continues to deliver on its promise to do things differently, says DDB Canada managing director Martha Jamieson.
“That idea that Doyle Dayne and Bernbach built long ago is still really at the core of the brand,” she emphasizes. “It’s about creativity and consumer insights and doing things that move people to take an action that benefits our clients’ brands.”
The full-service agency has more than 45 employees and presence in Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. It’s a “legacy brand” that moves forward with the times, says Eva Polis, a 25-year veteran of the agency and its executive creative director. “The world changes and we change with it. Clients entrust us with their challenge and we deliver a solution they never would have thought of themselves.”
Geminai Rising is an online, interactive, multi-component game developed for junior high school students. This dynamic teaching resource builds on Shadows of the Academy for Alberta Health Services.
Often, this means taking an unexpected tack at a steadfast brand. There’s no better example of tradition than a museum, so when Edmonton’s Royal Alberta Museum closed its doors in order to move into a new location, DDB was challenged to put a fresh spin on a local institution.
The brief was to update the brand, spur annual membership and ticket sales and build buzz for the grand-reopening day.
The museum’s previous woolly mammoth logo was given a sleek, modern update and created a new tagline to go with it: “Feed your curiosity.” The new look was introduced to the city in a cheeky teaser campaign that included pop-ups of mysterious large packing crates throughout the city, building anticipation and curiosity around the re-opening.
The best of both worlds. Balancing alcohol consumption and mocktails. This non-traditional solution for Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis DrinkSense was an ad campaign complemented with make-your- own mocktail boxes.
Tickets for the big day were snapped up in under six hours, vastly outpacing the initial forecast of seven days. And average monthly visits in the first three months of operation exceeded targets by 33%.
DDB Canada’s capabilities were once again put to the test with another major rebrand: a new moniker and brand identity for Edmonton’s CFL football team after it discontinued its original name, the Edmonton Eskimos.
DDB was tasked with creating a theme and brand identity for RGD DesignThinkers 2022, Canada’s largest graphic design conference. The theme “Defy” was a reminder that growth and change only happen when people take risks or break rules.
Fans were recruited to contribute ideas and almost 15,000 suggestions came in. Then, over 40,000 fans weighed in on a shortlist of seven
finalists, choosing Edmonton Elks as the winner. The “Antler Up” launch video for the new name had more than 500,000 views in its first week, while merchandise sales saw triple-digit growth in the first two games.
“The response was overwhelmingly positive,” Jamieson says. “The team embraced it, the community embraced it, the media embraced it. I don’t think we could have asked for a better launch.” Eve Rémillard Larose, CEO of TBWA\Group Canada which oversees DDB Canada, notes that DDB is “really strong at changing consumer behaviour.” DDB’s work for Alberta Health Services on smoking cessation is a case in point.
For Alberta Health Services, DDB created a role-playing card game played at schools in which kids learn to resist the pressure to start smoking. The initial order of 5,000 games was tripled and the game became an official part of the provincial school curriculum.
The provincial health provider came to DDB seeking a clever, but simple poster campaign to convince kids not to start smoking.
“We could have delivered a poster campaign with a clever headline,” Polis says. “But would it really have made a difference?”
Instead, the agency came at the problem from another angle and created a role-playing board game for schools called Shadows of the Academy. In it, kids band together to protect each other from harm and through play, learn to resist peer pressure to light up.
DDB’s design work for the Edmonton International Airport’s annual report received a Cannes Lions shortlist.
Shadows of the Academy not only became an official part of Alberta’s school curriculum, which tripled the initial order of 5,000 games, but was picked up by school boards across the country.
“We look at things differently and really think about the challenge in front of us and how we can create something impactful. We do that every single time we get a brief,” Jamieson says.
They applied the same kind of thinking for longtime client STARS Lottery, which raises funds for helicopter air rescue services. Instead of only focusing on prizes, like many of its competitors, DDB created a campaign that focused on the cause, balancing empathy with the joy of winning.
STARS Lottery sales have been phenomenal since DDB began working on this brand. They brought the emotion back into the lottery. A fine balancing act between prizes and the cause.
“It can’t just be one or another,” she says. “That’s why we’ve been successful at keeping the business for so many years.”
CONTACT:
Martha Jamieson
Managing director
martha.jamieson@ddbcanada.com
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