Via Rail’s investment in Canadian media pays off
A signatory of the CMDC's Canadian Media Manifesto, Via Rail is reporting healthy results from its "Nobody Knows" campaign. The Canadian Media Directors’ Council (CMDC) is continuing to push its invest-in-Canada focus as it inches closer to its goal of having the country’s advertisers commit 25% of digital media investment (or $380 million) to Canadian media by 2025. Right now, over 1,500 pledges have been received to bring the Canadian Media Manifesto tally to 19.5% for local media.
CMDC will launch a new ad campaign in September to support the Media Manifesto. In the meantime, it is sharing case studies of brands that have been successful in shifting dollars to local media. One example is the recent “Nobody Knows” campaign for Via Rail.
The creative was designed to tell consumers about Via’s 32 new trains – without showing a single image of a train. The OOH and digital bilingual campaign is 100% focused on local media and was recently rolled out across CBC/SRC, Globe & Mail, Postmedia, La Presse, Bell, Rogers and Pelmorex platforms, particularly within digital impact formats such as takeovers and full screens.
In collaboration with media partner, Touché!, the ads were strategically placed at points of contact (bus shelters, highways, Bixi locations, subways and metros) with the target audience (car drivers and public transport users). Created by Cossette, the advertising ran in Toronto and Ottawa from May to June and is now running in Montreal and Quebec until the end of July.
Via Rail has been a strong supporter of Canadian media and since 2019, it has invested 80% of its digital spend in Canadian media. Since it began this strategy, it has demonstrated that a digital dollar allocation increase from 50% to 80% delivered two key business results: a 5.5% total revenue increase and an increase of 6.5% in total transactions.
While COVID had a negative impact on business results, Via Rail says it was able to bounce back from travel interruptions thanks in part to its partnerships with Canadian media. For the 2024 campaign, Via dedicated 100% of its digital investment to Canadian media and correlated the success of its commercial business performance (both sales and net new customers) to its Canadian media investment. Preliminary results of this campaign show an increase of 14.7% of YoY website visits for the campaign period thus far, between May 8 and July 8.
“Since the pandemic, our media strategy and investments were mainly focused on conversion/performance campaigns,” says Brigitte Dagnault, Via Rail’s chief communications and marketing officer. “[But], we will prove once again that we can reach our audiences, capture their attention, and drive our metrics by collaborating with valued Canadian media partners.”
Shannon Lewis, CMDC president, says that while the challenges facing local media are significant, the need for quality trusted, brand safe environments has never been greater.
“Supporting local media isn’t just about doing the right thing; it’s also about making sound business decisions that benefit our brands and contribute to the strength of our Canadian economy,” says Lewis. “The recent announcement from the Ontario Government mandating a 25% investment in local news media shows how the landscape is changing. We believe this shift will inspire the federal government and major corporations to make similar commitments. Together, we can make a meaningful impact on the sustainability of business in Canada.”
Lewis adds that the CMDC has been conducting regular sessions and workshops with the help of industry leaders to achieve its signatory goal. It also recently launched a Canadian local media strategic framework designed to empower stakeholders in navigating the landscape. In collaboration with Google, the dashboard automatically tracks programmatic investment that’s being put towards local media.
Lewis says, “We have all committed to investing more in Canadian media, even tech, and having robust and consistent measurement across our industry is essential to hold ourselves accountable and help drive the change we strive towards.”