Canadian Tourism Commission

Research showed that while most Londoners wanted to visit Canada someday, they didn’t have a compelling reason to come now. The CTC needed to increase bookings and create a sense of urgency in a jaded British audience.

The first stage of DDB’s resulting campaign was a “Call of the Wild” teaser, in which wolf images were projected onto London attractions like the Tate Modern museum and Covent Garden and recordings of loons were piped into key landmarks, reinforced by a tongue-in-cheek PR push about a loon on the loose in the city.

The teaser ended with an invitation to “Step into Canada” at Canary Wharf, where an impressive glass structure dubbed the CTC Experiential Dome was divided into four themed areas – the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario and Alberta. The Ontario section transported visitors to Niagara with the sounds of crickets and birds, painted murals and product samples. Visitors were pointed to canada.travel for information and a chance to win a Canadian adventure for two.

The campaign was supported with massive OOH displays at nine London tube stations, as well as inserts in Metro, the free commuter newspaper, and an online campaign delivering 22 million rich media impressions in two months.

Actual trip bookings from the U.K. rose by 3%, translating into $34 million in tourism revenue. The number of consumers likely to take a trip to Canada in the next year increased 8% from 2007. The campaign received press coverage, and the dome itself was featured on BBC1’s The Apprentice.