Canadians will soon be doing more than drawing images of Spock over the portrait of Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier on the $5 bill.
The Royal Canadian Mint is asking Canadians to submit designs for five circulation coins (the nickel, dime, quarter, loonie and toonie) for Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017. The Canada 150 Collection coins will replace current icons like the Bluenose on the dime and beaver on the nickel that year.
The Mint launched the “My Canada, My Inspiration” contest last week with a major integrated national campaign developed by Cossette.
“The idea is that every Canadian can bring their ideas of what Canada can be for them,” says Thomas Nelligan, creative director at Cossette in Montreal.
Bus shelters in Toronto and street corner columns in Montreal have been decorated with 3D images of the loon icon while bus shelters in Vancouver are sporting 3D images of the bear on the toonie. The campaign has the tag line “Coin your story.”
Videos on social media show the animal icons walking away from the coins and a teaser YouTube spot features a magician at Montreal’s Central Station making the animals disappear from the coins.
Ads also appeared on the back covers of Metro newspapers in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver on contest launch day, March 11. Promotions teams distributed pencils outside of subway stations to encourage people to use the newspaper ad as a template for their designs.
For the launch, the Mint and Hill+Knowlton Strategies invited local artists in Ottawa, Montreal, Calgary, Winnipeg and Halifax to take part in art competitions where they created designs based on the contest before live audiences.
Canadians have until April 30 to submit designs based on the themes Our Wonders, Our Character, Our Achievements and Our Passions. Schools and museums with children’s programs are being asked to promote a fifth theme, Our Future, which is reserved for children 12 and under.
“This contest provides a unique opportunity to create a coin that will be seen by all Canadians” to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary, says Patrick Hadsipantelis, vice-president of marketing and communications at the Royal Canadian Mint.
In the spring, well-known Canadians will choose finalists and in the fall the public will get to vote online from five finalists per category.
Along with bragging rights and getting to spend money they designed, the winners will receive $2,000 each and a trip to the unveiling of the coins.
