Team Canada athletes and CF ‘Bring Back Play’
We all start somewhere, and for many Team Canada athletes it was on the playground where they first began to build the foundational skills that brought them to Paris this week.
Olympic athlete or not, the power of play can’t be understated. That’s the message of the new campaign from Cadillac Fairview to “Bring Back Play” to Canadian children who have become increasingly inactive.
Team Canada athletes and CF experience the Power of One from N2 and Publicis Groupe Canada
North Strategic and Notch (together called N2) have been part of this exciting new program—the first brand campaign from CF in partnership with the Canadian Olympic Committee in many years. Collaborating with a Publicis Groupe network of agencies, including N2, Publicis Toronto for creative, Starcom for media planning and buying and Publicis Sports and Entertainment for XM, the Groupe developed a fully integrated plan to bring the campaign to life.
Notch worked directly with its partners on the creative team at Publicis Toronto to execute production and bring that message home with a series of playful videos featuring a cast of kids and two Team Canada athletes, Ellie Black and Damian Warner.
The hero video shows one young boy ditching an iPad and getting off the couch to visit the playground, where he and other kids explain that “when you take us to the playground” they experience a wide range of benefits: they make friends, they laugh, and they “grow stronger—together.”
Then, it’s Team Canada’s turn to make the connection between play as children and thriving as adults: “When we went to the playground we felt like winners,” Black and Warner say.
Notch brought its nimble, innovative production approach to compliment the ambitious creative put forth by the Publicis team, sourcing the core crew, including director Ryley Burghall and director of photography Grant Cooper, from the Notch network of freelancer talent.
As long-term production partners of Cadillac Fairview, Notch has deep experience working with Olympic athletes on previous campaigns. With both athletes and child talent on set (10 kids, to be exact!), this meant a sharp focus on logistics, a meticulously planned shoot schedule, and a much-needed break when the ice cream truck rolled by. Over the course of one shoot day, Notch captured the hero video, TikTok organic content, and shot stills for digital and OOH media buy. Beyond that, the Notch team provided production solutions for TTC-owned OOH assets, including the enormous digital board overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto.
North Strategic slides into successful PR
To bring the idea of play to exciting life, North and CF partnered on a major activation and kick-off event at the CF Toronto Eaton Centre: a giant slide in the middle of the shopping centre.
Envisioned and executed by the North team, the work included extensive research and planning during the development stage, vetting Olympic athlete attendees, leveraging them for interviews and coordinating said interviews, overseeing vendor communications and on-site logistics, and communicating and coordinating with internal and external stakeholders at both CF and the COC before and during the event. On launch day, more than 70 people attended, including CF execs, COC partners, local councillors, Olympic athletes, media and kids.
The kick-off event grabbed big attention, securing 121 hits and more than 39 million impressions (and counting) for CF, including pre-taped segments with CP24 and The Weather Network and on-site interviews with CBC National, BlogTO and the Globe & Mail.
CF building vibrant communities through the power of sport
The initiative is fuelled by a growing body of research that shows Canadian children are not meeting national physical activity guidelines and may be swapping playtime for screentime. In fact, more than 70 per cent of children exceed the maximum amount of screentime guidelines of 2 hours daily, according to data from ParticipACTION, a national non-profit that advocates for active living.
For Cadillac Fairview, the new campaign is a powerful new initiative that contributes to the goal of building vibrant communities through the power of sport. With the “Bring Back Play” program, CF plans to invest more in playtime through a commitment to develop more play spaces for kids to get active and engaged in sports.
To learn more about how North and Notch (N2) and the Publicis Groupe network can help your business bring ideas to life, contact us today.