No Name, McDonald’s among Twitter Canada’s most memorable 2019 brand campaigns

by Chris Powell

Twitter Canada has announced its list of the top brand campaigns of the year—ranging from No Name’s quirky product posts, to McDonald’s Canada’s deftness at tying its brand to the Toronto Raptors’ playoff success.

The campaigns reflect the stated ambition of the social network’s newly introduced Twitter Next offering, which is committed to helping brand partners develop “human-centric” ideas capable of driving conversation by bringing together strategists, technologies, program managers and designers.

“Our goal is to get people talking about brands,” Twitter Canada’s head of brand strategy Jamie Michaels told The Message earlier this year. Let the conversation begin.

Best Purpose-Driven Launch:  Bell Let’s Talk

The annual #BellLetsTalk event has used Twitter to raise funds and awareness across its four key pillars: anti-stigma, care and access, research and workplace health, with 5¢ donated to initiatives across those areas every time the hashtag is used. The most re-tweeted tweet of the year on Twitter Canada was actor Seth Rogen’s about the event, which was retweeted 167,000 times.

Best Only On Twitter launch:

Bestowed upon the brand that creatively used Twitter as its only (or primary) media partner to launch something new. CIBC Aventura Visa partnered with Food Network and Corus Entertainment’s in-house content studio, so.da, to launch the interactive cooking series #DestinationDishes.

The program gave Twitter users the ability to determine that week’s content by selecting a preferred destination in a Twitter poll. Once the results were in, a Food Network chef prepared a dish inspired by the most selected destination.

Best Connection to Culture

Presented to the brand best able to connect to a big cultural event and drive rich conversation during a launch. This honour went to McDonald’s Canada for the launch of its #BeyondTheArch campaign, which leveraged the Toronto Raptors’ playoff success with Twitter content that was “highly connected” to the team’s success (plus a nifty use of the QSR’s famous arches).

Best Pre-Launch Tease

Presented to the brand that that got people excited prior to the reveal. Schitt’s Creek was the most tweeted about Canadian TV show of the year, and to get viewers excited for season five episodes, it utilized the cast to create a behind-the-scenes look at each upcoming episode.

Best Brand Launch

Presented to a brand that made a splash in its Twitter debut. With its matter-of-fact approach to tweeting about everything from baking powder (“will not replace oven”) to medium cheddar (“cannot communicate with the other side”), Twitter’s No Name account quickly had people talking on the platform, and it has amassed more than 43,000 followers since its debut. (See our story here, back when @NoNameBrands only had 24,000 followers.)

Best Use of Creators

Presented to the brand that best leveraged influencers and creators to spread the word in “new and interesting ways” during a launch, this honour went to Samsung Canada for its weekly series #PowerUp—which used young directors from DirectorX’s production company Popp Rok to create a series of music videos using the new Galaxay Note 10 (see our story here).

Best Physical to Digital Application

Bestowed upon the brand/campaign that brought what Michaels calls “the magic of Twitter” into real life by combining digital and experiential. This honour went to CFL sponsor Nissan Canada for its #NissanGreyCupContest, which ran exclusively on the social network. The program saw winners awarded prize packs from the league and Nissan in real-time, delivered directly to their homes in Nissan vehicles.

Best Way to Fuel Fans

This honour went to the brand that used Twitter to enlighten and engage a large fan-base in a creative manner. Budweiser Canada was the recipient for its efforts to promote women’s hockey as the official sponsor of the Professional Women Hockey Players Association. Its efforts including tweeting stories of female players impacted by a lack of funding within the game.

Best Use of Twitter Products

Presented to the brand that took advantage of innovative Twitter products to create an original interactive campaign to reach Canadian audiences. This went to Elections Canada for its campaign reminding Canadians to vote and directed them to the official Elections Canada website for information about how to register and vote.

 

Chris Powell