Doctors of the World and Publicis New York have done it again. They have grabbed peoples attention by focusing on “I’m moving to Canada,” a common phrase associated with discussions around the current elections in the United States, to discuss the plight refugees face when fleeing from their countries.
The Canadian immigration website actually crashed on election night when one presidential nominee was doing better than the other.
Publicis has partnered with the non-profit, which is an international humanitarian organization that provides emergency and long-term medical care to vulnerable populations while fighting for equal access to healthcare worldwide, to address the issue of immigration in a positive way.
“The current international refugee crisis is the largest humanitarian crisis of our lifetime,” said Tamera Gugelmeyer, Director of Strategic Communications and Digital Engagement at Doctors of the World. “We think our campaign made the refugee crisis very real for people in a moment when they might have been half-heartedly thinking about “fleeing” to a new country.”
According to the campaign, Google Trends show that search interest in “Move to Canada” has reached it’s highest point (+350%) in the US since 2004. Because of this insight, the campaign aimed to make the refuge crisis real for people
The strategy was to interrupt users googling moving to Canada with a serious message about how refugees suffer when fleeing from their countries. Publicis did this by producing video content featuring top Canadian celebrities such as Drake and Justin Bieber and search advertising tied to key terms related to moving to Canada.
The campaign also kept the conversation on social active by contacting key Canadian influencers and celebrities who had participated in similar dialogues about moving. Both serious and comical social posts leveraged the popular #ImMovingtoCanada hashtag.
“The freedom you have to move to another country if you’re not happy with the result of an election is in stark contrast to those who are trying to flee much worse. We hoped this contrast was enough to make people consider the plight of the refugees – and then reach into their pockets and help them,” said Andy Bird, chief creative officer, Publicis New York.
The website/campaign asks for donations to assist refugees in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere currently.
Their 2014 campaign, “More Than Just a Costume” on the ebola outbreak resulted in several awards and over 4600 uniforms for ebola workers in under a week.
