Heart and Stroke Foundation: THE UNDEADING

Credits & Description:

Advertiser: HEART & STROKE FOUNDATION ONTARIO
Agency: AGENCY59
Category: Short Format Internet Film
Post Production: Alter Ego
Account Supervisor: Akiyo Hattori
Chief Creative Officer: Brian Howlett
Animation: Dave Willows
Music: Cyrille Aufort
Cinematographer: Jeremy Benning
Director Of Photography: Jeremy Benning
Copywriter: Ketan Manohar
Advertiser's Supervisor: Krista Orendorff
Agency Producer: Maggie Kelly
Editing Company: Married To Giants
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Producer: William Cranor
Animation: Darren Achim
Animation: Eric Whipp
Editor: Graham Chisholm
Advertiser's Supervisor: Mark Holland
Producer: Matt Kloske
Animation: Rob Fisher
Art Director: Naeem Walji
Animation: Scott Renoud
Sound Design/Arrangement: RMW
Marketing Context
November is CPR Month. In 2011, the Heart&Stroke Foundation and its network of trainers conducted fifteen different training sessions for small groups in various communities, training a total of 700 people in CPR. These efforts were supported only by local, tactical advertising programs, and not any mass advertising.
For 2012, we changed the game with THE UNDEADING.
Campaign Planning
This strategic thinking was the crucial first step.We would leverage the popularity of Halloween among youth, developing a campaign that entertained them, engaged with them live and on social media, to ultimately show them how easy CPR training is.
Rather than promoting a series of smaller training events, as in years past, we knew that trying to stage one large training session would generate more awareness. By kicking things off in such dramatic fashion, we could then build on this awareness through the month of November, to invite participation in smaller training events that would still be held in local centres across Ontario.
We partnered with Canada’s Wonderland as the venue for the training event, to be held October 25. This theme park had the space to accommodate thousands of people, and it held the popular Halloween Haunt every October. We struck a partnership in which Canada’s Wonderland would promote THE UNDEADING in its own advertising, and as added incentive to sign up, people would be given free admission to the theme park that evening. In fact, Canada’s Wonderland closed off its park that night, for the exclusive use of the UNDEADING participants, as a reward for completing their training.
Marketing & Media Strategy
The paid media spend was $30,000. This was invested in a short three-week window in October.
The transit shelters, campus murals and wild postings were served as teasers pre-campaign starting in early October. They simply said ‘The Undeading is Nigh’ and drove traffic to the microsite.
The online banner ads also drove traffic to the microsite, rather than attempting to tell the whole story. As the campaign unfolded, and we neared the event at Wonderland, the banner ads became more tactical, inviting people to join the training and receive free admission to Halloween Haunt.
The Facebook video page post ads followed the same approach, and allowed Facebook users to share and comment about THE UNDEADING event. This medium reached over 1.2 million Facebook users within our demographic over the three-week campaign.
These were the paid media channels we could control, and predict. The unexpected boost to the campaign came with all the media coverage. Heart&Stroke personnel were interviewed by media across Ontario, expanding on the CPR story, extending the campaign’s reach, and having an opportunity to invite people out to the training session.
Creative Strategy
Our aim to attract youth lead to a fresh take on the Zombie phenomenon. The powerful script attracted Vinenzo Natali, a director of cult horror classics like CUBE, SPLICE, and GINGER SNAPS, creating a film that, in spite of a small budget, was Hollywood-calibre. It held nothing back in its tale of a woman who, fleeing a zombie apocalypse, suffers a heart attack. The delicious twist comes when the zombies use CPR to bring her back to life, only to attack her again. By keeping the entertainment values high, we were able to walk the viewer through the 3 Steps of doing Hands-Only CPR, without fearing we would lose their interest. The violence, epic special effects and sly humour played to raunchy young tastes.
We teased the film with posters and by invading an all-night art festival. At the microsite we began a countdown to October 4, when we launched the Zombie outbreak with a live showing of the three-minute film at Dundas Square. Once the film broke, we continued the momentum with content updates and a Twitter campaign in which our characters used their Twitter followers to help them make it from Dundas Square to the Safe Zone at Wonderland over the next three weeks.
Evidence of Results
Within hours of the film’s Youtube release, it was at 20,000 views. It made the front page of Mashable and started trending on Youtube. Local news picked it up within days; then national; then international, including major outlets like CBS News, the Washington Post, Fast Company Magazine, and the U.K.’s prestigious Daily Mail.
In one week it hit 500,000 views. Space Network, a popular cable channel, aired the entire three-minute film for free. Not one, but two film festivals invited it into their programs; Toronto’s After Dark festival, and HumanDoc, in Warsaw.
Word about the training event spread. And three weeks later, we had recruited 5020 people to come to Wonderland for the training. In one day, we trained as many people as it normally takes 3 years to train.
Thanks to the media coverage, 90 million people around the world heard of our campaign, and – more importantly – CPR training.
Plus, November training events in smaller communities enjoyed more attendance than ever. Through November 2012, an additional 3,000 people were trained in CPR, bringing the total number to over 8,000. (Compare this to a total of 700 in 2011.)
Target Audience
A key research finding laid the foundation. We were surprised to learn that young people were the most likely to perform CPR in public. With this insight in hand, we targeted an entirely new demographic, those between the ages of 18 to 24. Historically, CPR awareness campaigns target a much wider, predominantly older demographic; adults 18-55. Narrowing the focus made us think about things in new ways.
For instance, a conventional training film, 'instructing' people how to do CPR, long a staple of CPR campaigns, would be the kiss of death. Instead, we went after young adults hard, and on their terms, and on their channels.
Even though CPR Month is November, we saw a new opportunity with the youth target. November is not the ideal month for a campaign aimed at young people. It is pre-holidays, and secondary and post-secondary academic commitments are ramping up. So we kicked off CPR Month in October, thereby generating buzz that would last through November. October is the season of Halloween, a tremendously popular holiday with young people. Plus, there was a built-in link to Halloween - a season of the dead - and learning a skill that can ward off death itself.
Talent 1: Brian Howlett|CCO
Talent 2: Naeem Walji|AD
Talent 3: Ketan Manohar|CW
Talent 4: Akiyo Hattori|Account Director
Talent 5: Mark Holland|Heart&Stroke Foundation
Talent 6: Krista Orendorff|Heart&Stroke Foundation
Talent 7: William Cranor|Executive Producer
Talent 8: Maggie Kelly|Agency Producer
Talent 9: Vincenzo Natali|Director
Talent 10: Alter Ego|Effects
Talent 11: Married to Giants|Editing