With Ontario’s provincial election just weeks away, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has launched a marketing campaign aimed at making jobs and job quality a central part of the political debate.
Developed by Joe Hill Communications, the “How Screwed Are You?” campaign features wild postings throughout Toronto and billboards in the 24 Ontario markets with community colleges.
Joe Hill is a Toronto agency specializing in social justice and labour issues. It created this year’s “People for Corporate Tax Cuts” campaign, also for OPSEU.
The “How Screwed” postings are being augmented by a mobile billboard traveling around key cities, a Facebook page (which at press time had 298 fans) and street teams – featuring a giant mascot named Screwy – who has been present at several Toronto events, including Monday’s annual Labour Day parade.
Creative for the campaign consists of images of everyday people with an oversized screw through their head and a URL for HowScrewedAreYou.ca.
The site features a calculator that lets students, parents and part-time employees find out how “screwed” they are by plugging in a series of numbers relating their education costs, retirement objectives and so on (each answer comes in the form of a video).
It also includes a form enabling them to express their concerns to their local MPP, and a contest asking participants to complete the sentence “I am so screwed that…” for a chance to win three cash prizes of $2,400. The contest has attracted more than 500 entries said OPSEU political economist Randy Robinson.
The site also features a flash-based game in which players are invited to redistribute $2.4 billion in corporate tax cuts to achieve objectives such as lowering tuition costs and creating better employment standards.
“We wanted to do something that was a little bit off-the-wall and would be the kind of thing that people would forward to their friends and like on Facebook and get the conversation going,” said Robinson. The organization considered TV and radio spots, but opted for the more “economical” method of having consumers spread the message via social media.
While the campaign is meant to address multiple issues – the rising cost of post-secondary education, the debt incurred by people pursuing a post-secondary education – Robinson said its central plank is the “deteriorating” Ontario job market.
“The idea behind the campaign is to get people talking about what kind of Ontario they really want,” said Phil Haynes, creative director of Joe Hill Communications. “Do we want an Ontario with part-time jobs, low pay and no benefits, or do we want an Ontario with good full-time jobs?”
The “How Screwed Are You?” campaign will be a success, said Robinson, if the issues important to OPSEU and its members are discussed during the election campaign. “We’re just trying to be part of the debate, we’re not trying to be the debate,” he said.
