Destination Canada’s objective was to increase awareness and drive consideration among business event decision makers and leisure travellers.  Destination Canada was looking for both the right audiences and environment to tell compelling stories about Canada.

Destination Canada and Economist Impact developed “Open Atlas’, highlighting Canada’s unique blend of openness — open spaces, open hearts, open minds — offering space for growth and enrichment. The content was designed to generate demand for business events in Canada while capturing the hearts and minds of leisure travellers.

This campaign leverages a strategic mix of new and existing (high performing) content to optimise engagement for our two audiences – driving consideration among business decision makers and high net worth travellers who are booking events and/or business travel to consider Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and Halifax and inspire them to experience bleisure at its best and Meet. Play. Stay extra.

Our rich content positioned Canada as a place to discover inspiring, knowledge-rich destinations that can help one reconnect, reset and refresh — making it the ideal destination for business events, leisure travel – or both. Stunning, visually-led storytelling was vital to this program to bring Destination Canada’s unique positioning and offerings to life. More than just tourism, we aimed to show how these cities are excelling across sectors and driving progress for the future.

Core themes designed to showcase all Canada offers:
Connect – its distinct and diverse landscape
Reset – beautiful space to decompress
Sustain – commitment to sustainable practices
Nourish – delicious food rich in tradition
Evolve – innovations that are helping feed the world, protect our oceans
Collaborate – sharing of new ideas for collective progress

These themes were brought to life via six city deep dives, highlighting the multitude of qualities each provides. In addition to the above themes that ran across our campaign, we also included city-specific themes to show our audience how each place is driving progress for the future. We aimed to inspire our audience to consider Canada not just as a place to elevate travel itineraries but as a destination where travellers can get ideas for the future, and grow personally and professionally.

• In addition to Ottawa’s historical sites we told stories about how the city is a global force in the aerospace and aviation industry, driving progress for tomorrow.
• For Toronto, we highlighted its vibrant and diverse neighbourhoods and food from around the world while underscoring the city as an international talent hub for innovation and new ways to do business.
• Calgary’s incredible culinary scene is complemented by the city’s leadership in agribusiness and sustainable food, where industry leaders can get ideas for feeding the planet.
• Montreal’s thriving art scene and stylish hotels offer the perfect backdrop for visitors to get a glimpse of the future at tech events and thought-provoking installations across the city, helping them to see the world in a different light.
• For Vancouver we focused on its breathtaking nature and sustainable tourism offerings while highlighting the city’s hydrogen push and expertise in clean technology.

Finally, Halifax’s incredible breadth of water activities from riding the world’s biggest tidal waves to dining on the ocean floor fit in perfectly with stories of progress made at sea thanks to an international cohort of researchers based here who are leveraging a range of cutting-edge technology to protect marine life.

Creative executions:  A series of social tap stories, longer-form slide shows, reels and audio interviews for the 6 cities.  These visually led executions included stunning photography and videos, raising awareness about Canada as a destination for both business and leisure travellers through memorable multimedia storytelling. A beautiful central hub hosting all content provided a destination for users to explore the full program.

• Tap stories: 6-8 slides each, including a rich mix of multimedia assets such as video, audio and illustrations
• Slideshows: seamlessly reveal stories, insights, illustrations and information. All hosted on the homepage.  Slides in the slideshow will include CTAs that links to a fuller piece of content and drive deeper engagement.

Digital and social amplification: Hyper targeted digital and social campaign utilising eye-catching creative formats and relevant sponsorship opportunities within The Economist ecosystem.

Driving brand awareness:

• The Economist’s Mobile App Homepage Weekly Takeover
• Audience targeted banners and videos on Economist.com

Driving content engagement:

• In-content video and display banners on Economist.com
• Paid social media campaign on LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram

Custom content: social carousels, ad banners and videos