The Ontario Toyota Dealers Association (OTDA) is making dreams come true this holiday by granting wishes to 24 deserving Ontarians.
The “Ontario Toyota Dealers Wishmaker” campaign, developed by Toronto-based shop Rain 43, sees the organization fulfil one holiday wish for every day of December, culminating on the 24th.
In mid-November, the OTDA began asking Ontario residents to submit nominations for people they feel deserve a special gift this holiday season. To date, the association has received nearly 700 nominations, with the winners chosen by a selection committee made up of Rain 43 staffers and Ontario Toyota dealers.
“The Ontario Toyota Dealers brand really is about real people and great cars, and our holiday idea was to give back to the community, to really show how Ontario Toyota dealers are part of their individual communities across Ontario and how we can be a little more personal, a little more involved in those individual communities,” said John Farquhar, partner and chief creative officer at Rain 43. “And they are very much involved in their communities already, so what we wanted to do is amplify that thought in a big way for the holidays.”
Nominations will remain open until Dec. 15, and the OTDA and Rain 43 are still in the process of selecting the remaining winners.
“There’s a lot of these kinds of community outreach programs that go on, ours is the only one that’s being done in real time,” Farquhar said.
At the centre of the campaign is a 60-foot tall, “Wishmaker Holiday Calendar.” Designed to resemble an advent calendar, it’s comprised of 25 lit and numbered shipping containers, plus an additional 12- foot high sign. Constructed in three weeks by SMAK, the “Wishmaker Holiday Calendar” is currently on display in Toronto’s Liberty Village.
Daily winners must travel to the calendar’s location to discover their gift. So far, the OTDA has given a new laptop and camera to a young cancer survivor, a Disney World trip to a couple with two autistic sons, and free dance shoes to a women who runs a Toronto-based program called Dancing with Parkinson’s. Camera crews are on hand to record the moment, and the videos are available for viewing on the campaign’s dedicated site ToyotaWishmaker.ca.
The campaign is being shared and tracked online with #ToyotaWishmaker, and is being promoted across OTDA’s social channels, on Facebook, and via online banners.
The OTDA is working with Fleishmann Hillard on PR. Wills & Co. is handling the media buy, while Upshot Productions is responsible for video production. In addition to building the calendar, SMAK is also tasked with consumer engagement and prize fulfillment.
