Challenges

COSTI Immigrant Services provides a myriad of services for immigrant communities within the Greater Toronto Area. In light of recent political and social challenges concerning immigration and refugees, COSTI wanted to launch a Public Service campaign informing and educating the Canadian public about the value of immigrants to our great country.

Insights

We wanted to showcase the amazing impact of COSTI clients on their communities and our economy via a testimonial style campaign. And we knew we had to cut through the clutter—we didn’t want to look like another international language school advertising campaign. We worked on a provocative and contextually significant concept—I AM A (NEW) CANADIAN, referencing a legacy, “old stock” Canadian advertising campaign from the 1990s.

Solutions

We were honoured to work closely with contemporary Canadian artist, Hans Poppe, to develop custom artworks of COSTI’s clients. Shayan, Grace, Rajeev, Samira, and Milagros open the campaign by telling their inspiring immigration stories and how they personally are striving to make Canada a stronger and more prosperous country.

The campaign ran throughout the GTA in 2019, and was seen everywhere, on buses, at streetcar stops, in subway stations, billboards at Yonge and Dundas square, and online via Instagram and Facebook campaigns. Specific results included:

• More than 2,000 users on the new website with 3,567 page views from people across Ontario, largely in the GTA, Niagara Falls, Ottawa and many more
• 35% of the website traffic was a direct result of our social campaign on Facebook and Instagram
• 52% visited the website after seeing the billboards, bus and TTC advertising, airport digital displays and more
• The social ads on Facebook and Twitter were seen by over 105,000 users
• COSTI’s page on Facebook increased its follower number by 31%