Advertiser: CANFUND
Agency: BBDO TORONTO
Category: Charities
Advertising campaign: GOLD4GOLD.CA
Director: Benjamin Weinstein
Associate Creative Director: Jamie Marcovitch (BBDO Toronto)
Art Director: Linda Carte (BBDO Toronto)
Account Supervisor: Justine Feron (BBDO Toronto)
Writer: Justine Feron (BBDO Toronto)
Writer: Peter Ignazi (BBDO Toronto)
Senior Vice President/Executive Creative Director: Peter Ignazi (BBDO Toronto)
Art Director: Todd Cornelius (BBDO Toronto)
Associate Creative Director: Todd Cornelius (BBDO Toronto)
Designer: Gloria Li (BBDO Toronto)
Writer: Jamie Marcovitch (BBDO Toronto)
Vice President/Group Account Director: Martina Ivsak (BBDO Toronto)
Senior Vice President/Executive Creative Director: Carlos Moreno (BBDO Toronto)
Agency Producer: Clair Galea (BBDO Toronto)
Founder/Executive Director: Jane Roos (CAN Fund)
Vice President/Associate Creative Director: Linda Carte (BBDO Toronto)
Editor: Matt Dell (Ricochet)
Designer: Mike Nugent (BBDO Toronto)
Client Brief Or Objective
Canada’s elite athletes earn about $10,000 a year less than what it costs them to live, train, and compete. CAN Fund is a charity dedicated to closing that gap – alleviating the financial peril that can prevent Canadian athletes from competing at their best.With the London 2012 games approaching, CAN Fund needed to raise money and build awareness of the problem to help make our athletes’ gold-winning dreams a reality. But dwelling on the magnitude of the problem isn’t motivating, so our strategy was to make Canadians feel invested in creating a solution.
Outcome
Fundraising of this kind had never been attempted before, making projections at the outset difficult. In the end, there were a variety of individuals donating items through the online mechanism, through a 'Gold4Gold' party - and one corporate supporter donated $30,000 in gold. All production resources, actor rates and agency fees were donated as well. The response from the athletes was incredible with over 25 of our top athletes and teams drumming up support through social media.
Relevancy
Creatively: Canada is a hotbed of cheesy gold merchant advertising – from Russell Oliver’s ‘Cashman’ spots to Harold the Jewellery Buyer’s 'Are you sitting on a gold mine?' puns. These ads pervade pop culture as both touchstones and punch lines, and we knew that playing off them would get us noticed.Organisationally: CAN Fund is in the business of helping athletes win gold for Canada. There’s a nice parallelism in the idea that Canadians have to give gold to get gold.Logistically: Gold is light, valuable, and readily available.
Implementation
We needed money, but so does every other charitable organisation. So we decided to ask for something other than money – something easy to donate, creatively interesting, and connected to CAN Fund’s purpose. That something was gold.Our message to Canadians was simple – if you want gold from your athletes, you’re going to have to give gold. We launched a TV ad and a social media campaign inviting Canadians to donate their broken and unwanted gold to CAN Fund. And we partnered with smelters and valuers who could turn that gold into cash for Canadians' athletes.