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Elections Ontario

In Canada, declining voter turnout has been driven by rampant apathy. People had forgotten that every vote matters. It would be DDB Canada's challenge to convince them it did.

After listening to Ontarians talk about government and the electoral process, DDB was struck with the realization that just because they didn't vote, didn't mean they didn't have passionate opinions to express. Thus, the insight became "a vote is your opinion expressed."

This led to the provocative idea of showing the frustration of having no choice at all. In three darkly humorous TV spots, DDB depicted everyday situations where someone's opinion was expressed for him or her - by somebody else.

In print, the point was made by juxtaposing the mouths of certain individuals over the faces of others. DDB also broke electoral precedent and used wild postings for the first time. A direct mail piece integrated with the campaign and extended it to the Web.

It paid off. While other Canadian jurisdictions averaged a 10% decline in voter turnout, this campaign was able to actually stop the long-term decline in Ontario, even with the media predicting a Liberal landslide two weeks prior to the election.

Weekly Web site visits jumped to over 200,000 compared to a previous average of 15,000-20,000. Moreover, Independent Tracking Research found that the campaign exceeded all objectives for recall, impact on likelihood to vote, and sponsor identification. Ipsos-Reid attributed the Ontario success to the campaign and recommended that it become a permanent component of future election campaigns.

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