Changing the channel on Conservatives

Doug Ford is trying to dismantle public education. The public knows this—Ontarians overwhelmingly support publicly-funded education—yet many of them still vote Conservative. We had to stop them from voting against their best interests and their own values.

The stakes are high. Schools in Ontario are literally crumbling. Classrooms are too hot for children to pay attention. What’s worse, students have less support and fewer resources and, despite teachers and education workers’ best efforts, ultimately less of an opportunity to succeed.

Canadians watch an average of 8 hours of TV a week, so we went where our audience’s eyes already were, and drew inspiration from what they were watching.

We created a trailer for Ford High, the latest teen show that could slot in right on Netflix… if the school wasn’t falling apart. Playing into an emotional reaction and the warmth of nostalgia for our target audience of millennial parents, but disrupting and unsettling it. The narrative was rooted in a tested persuasive message that doesn’t shy away from the realities of what underfunding public education means: When we lose publicly funded schools, we leave children behind. Our communities will never be the same.

We put our ads everywhere a real TV show would, including all forms of advertising—digital ads, streaming tv, earned media, influencers (including celebs from The O.C., Mean Girls, and Degrassi High), and organic social media. We even hosted a premiere event at Hot Docs Cinema in Toronto.