2024 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

HomeEquity Bank (HEB) is the leading provider of reverse mortgages in Canada, which help seniors stay in the homes they love and enjoy the retirement they’ve worked decades to achieve.

HEB’s commitment to seniors goes beyond offering financial services. The company actively advocates for this demographic, speaking to issues that are relevant to their customer base. In fact, HEB’s average customer is 72 years old. One area HEB has been strongly committed to is its support of Canadian veterans. HEB was the presenting partner for the fourth consecutive year of The Legion National Foundation’s Digital Poppy campaign for Remembrance Day 2022.

Their challenge was to develop a program to demonstrate gratitude and help raise funds for this highly respected group.

To most Canadians, war feels distant, abstract, and difficult to relate to. Few of us have personal experience of conflict. That presents challenges in developing a program for a company whose business is squarely focused on the home. To create the 2022 sponsorship, they wanted to connect the place that is most familiar to us to events and places that are physically and emotionally distant from their own personal experience.

They began thinking about what home might have meant to veterans while they were far away from it. Since there were no WWI veterans and few from WWII alive to interview, their research had to be done through historical records.

They found a unique source of insight: the Canadian Letters and Images Project at Vancouver Island University, an online archive of the Canadian war experience, as told through the letters and images of Canadians themselves.

When they immersed themselves in soldiers’ letters home, they discovered the emotional resonance of home vividly sprang to life. It struck us that the feelings they have about home now are no different than those of veterans on the battlefield. That connected Canadian homeowners today to the veterans they
were seeking to honour.

It also led to their insight that the sacrifices of veterans no longer seem far away when you realize they once lived in the homes we now love.

The “Letters Home” campaign brought the wartime sacrifices of Canadian soldiers to life through the letters they sent home.

The team sifted through thousands of letters from the Canadian Letters and Images Project. Over 300 were chosen, from both WWI and WWII, to be replicated and sent to their original addresses in 29 cities across Canada in the weeks leading up to November 11. The residents of today met the residents of the past in an experience that was as emotional as it was unexpected. The campaign combined emotive storytelling elements with technology to honour veterans in an unexpected way.

The 300 replica letters that were mailed out included a QR code that directed recipients to Letters-Home.ca, where they could learn more and donate
to support today’s veterans.

Next, recipients’ responses were captured in a 30-second national TV spot. The thoughtprovoking video conveyed both the importance and power of wartime letters. The TSAs allowed Canadians to see the letters brought to life
in their own neighbourhoods.

As a way for all Canadians to get involved, a website was created. The site could be searched by address, city, or postal code to enable people to find letters near their own home. Following the search, visitors were prompted to purchase a Digital Poppy that, if the visitor wished, could be dedicated to a specific veteran.

“Letters Home” offered a unique and insightful window into the past, bringing a human face to war beyond statistics and names, and demonstrated how war is closer to home than we think.

Despite a limited media budget, it generated significant online media coverage across Canada with over 23 million media impressions, including Toronto Sun, Postmedia, and the front page of the Times Colonist.

CBC Radio-One Toronto aired an extended five-minute segment featuring the letters and explaining the campaign’s goals. Completely by chance, one of the letters went to an Indigo employee, and the company is now looking into publishing a book of the letters and “Letters Home” helped raise over $189,000 in donations
for veterans and their families.

Website link: https://letters-home.ca/

Credits

Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Chief Creative Officer: Zak Mroueh
Executive Creative Director: Brian Murray
Creative Director/Art Director: Vic Bath
Creative Director/Copywriter: Dan Cummings
Associate Creative Director/Art Director: Michael Romaniuk
Associate Creative Director/Copywriter: Marco Buchar
Design Director: Damian Simev
Designer: Ana-Marija Vlahovic, Jackman Chiu
Agency Producers: Ola Stodulska, Tim Lynch, Sarah Lasch
Account Team: Lauren Boultwood, Samantha Tang
Strategy Director: Maxine Thomas
Client: HomeEquity Bank / Royal Canadian Legion
Clients: Yvonne Ziomecki, Vivianne Gauci, Erin Wilson, Niary Toodakian, Jack Wilson, Saad Sharfuddin
Media Agency: OMD & iQuanti
Media Team: Dwayne Mataseje (OMD), Mitchell Cornelisse (OMD), Ishita Aggarwal (iQuanti), Bindiya Jiwani (iQuanti)
PR Agency: Weber Shandwick
PR Team: Jennifer Wasley, Adam Bornstein
Production House: Zulubot
Director: Dan Cummings
Researcher: Chris Greenberg
Production House Producers: Ben Bentivegna, Colleen Allen
Post Production: Zulubot
Editor: Jessie Posthumus
Colour Grading: Felipe Chaparro
Motion Graphics: Miguel Natividad
Audio Engineer: Dino Cuzzolino
Photographer: Noah Mroueh
Senior Developer: Jake Edwards