General information
Sector: Financial
Media: TV, VOD, online
Time period: October 25th – December 12th 2021
Case description
IG Wealth Management, a nearly 100-year-old brand, were looking for a breakthrough campaign rooted in broadcast TV to grow awareness and brand understanding following a rebrand in 2018. They wanted to stay competitive with a new generation of consumers, positioning the brand as the key to helping financially savvy, entrepreneurial-minded Canadians reach their dreams through sound and responsible financial advice.
CBC Radio-Canada worked with OMG to create a radical, breakthrough campaign rooted in content, that was different from existing brand-sell in digital, TV and OOH.
Leveraging research that showed branded-content programmes yield 22x average time spent with media over traditional formats, and can increase brand understanding to an average of 75%, an idea was born. CBC Radio Canada needed to create a video series that authentically told stories of Canadians facing relatable challenges, draw audiences in with a recognisable host, and position IG Wealth Management as a central force in helping Canadians reach their dreams.
The format involved real people with incredible stories who entered a challenge where celebrity talent and actual employees of IG Wealth Management formed a ‘Dream Team’ that would help solve their issues. It was imperative to treat this as content, so the 8-episode series was embedded into two best-in-class Canadian streaming platforms that audiences could watch on connected TVs and mobile devices. The programme was anchored on platforms that hit IG Wealth Management’s age, income and professional target audiences.
IG wanted to draw audiences to the programme but also tell their story through a 30-sec promotional campaign that started on TV and was supported by pre-roll, display, podcast and social campaigns. A phased approach was adopted to first launch the paid series, then each one of the show’s subjects were introduced. Character-driven assets shared stories of Indigenous artists, newcomers to Canada, young Canadians looking to challenge the status quo and more. Viewers saw how IG was helping Canadians invest in themselves, before they watched the programme itself.
The Dream Team is the first long-form branded entertainment series available in both French and English simultaneously on OTT streaming services in Canada. With 154 minutes of content, this is also the first branded-content series to be featured on the homepage of a free streaming platform in Canada – allowing us to reach IG’s target audience without barriers.
The Dream Team was a special project, harnessing the power of TV and helping pave the way for more long-form branded content in Canada – an important evolution for the industry as consumption habits shift.
Campaign results
The programme reached its goals of improving understanding and awareness. The series is an asset that IG Wealth Management can draw upon for years to come – an entertaining series, anchored in storytelling, that’s not tied to one specific product push.
Amongst high-earning and entrepreneurial Canadians, 89% of them said that The Dream Team improved their understanding of IG’s mission and 78% were left with a positive impression of the brand, a net increase of over 20% from pre-exposure, demonstrating the show’s ability to convert new audiences into IG Wealth Management brand believers. 84% of respondents wanted to learn more about the brand, and 83% of them were ready to purchase financial products from IG Wealth Management after watching.
There were over 70+ million impressions yielded for the campaign, and on social media, the content generated over 368,000 engagements with the stories of the ‘dreamers’ from the series.
The show earned coverage in Yahoo News, and multiple local and financial publications, and at the end of the campaign there were 7000 hours spent by Canadians with the series and related content pages. The campaign is a springboard to be able to expertly design new long-form series anchored in TV promotion campaigns, helping to evolve the business and serve client needs in new ways.