As the holidays draw near, it’s apropos that One Advertising and Plan Canada decided to mark their new relationship with a celebration of ethical gift giving.
The not-for-profit announced Monday it has enlisted the Toronto-based advertising agency (recently formed from the acquisition of Due North Communications by digital agency 58Ninety) to take on advertising duties around key Plan initiatives going forward. It’s tasked to help Plan fulfill its mandate of engaging more Canadians in supporting projects that will improve the lives of children and their families in poor and developing countries.
“Having Plan Canada as a partner is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our reason for being, using a completely integrated approach, to achieve Plan Canada’s one clear goal, to improve the lives of children,” said Jill King, President of One Advertising. “All of the Plan initiatives that are part of our partnership… are about moving the consumer from awareness to action. International aid agencies, like Plan, face difficult challenges these days and One’s approach let’s us work with Plan to use all channels to meet their objectives.”
The partnership was formed over the summer and creative work is starting to hit the market, including Plan’s “Gifts of Hope” holiday campaign, which launched on Monday to coincide with the partnership announcement.
Related
• 58Ninety acquires Due North, rebrands as One
“Gifts of Hope” is an ethical giving program that sees gifts given to help those in developing countries on the behalf of family and friends.
The campaign is integrated across channels and media with the aim of encouraging Canadians to “think outside the gift box.” It includes ad placement on specialty networks, online on YouTube, Google, Bing and CBC.ca, as well as the Weather Network, Yahoo and BBC.
The effort also features a newspaper and transit media buy, as well as a broadcast buy revolving around a :15 TV spot that features a talking goat voiced by iconic veteran Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent. One also handled media for the campaign.
“This is a time of year where messaging is pretty cluttered, particularly in this arena, and what we were hoping for was to really create something that would really stand out because of the unique offering,” said Karen Howe, senior vice-president, creative director of One. “If you’re going to have a spokesperson you want a memorable one and why not have the goat himself try to persuade people that this would be a great gift during the holiday season.”
“Gifts of Hope” campaign will run into December.
