2025 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

During the critical holiday sales period, minority-owned businesses often face significant challenges in gaining visibility.

Dominated by big-box retailers, who outspend small businesses 5000:1, the holiday season sees these larger companies taking over prime advertising spaces across TV, online platforms, and billboards. This extensive coverage leaves little room for smaller, minority-owned shops to get noticed.

As these underrepresented business owners struggle to break through the advertising clutter, they frequently remain absent from consumers' holiday shopping plans. This lack of visibility and inclusion during a peak sales period places them at a stark disadvantage, threatening their sustainability and growth.

BMO is dedicated to promoting financial fairness and enhancing support for underrepresented business owners. The campaign needed to effectively increase awareness and boost sales for these businesses, to level the playing field and help ensure more equitable economic opportunities.

Embed “Business Carols” into media where Christmas tunes are played, ensuring widespread exposure for minority-owned businesses. By tapping into the universal appeal of holiday carols – a staple of the festive season – the campaign ingeniously used these familiar tunes to spotlight businesses that typically remain in the background.

This approach not only honoured the deep-rooted tradition of carols in holiday celebrations but also redefined their purpose, turning a ubiquitous seasonal fixture into a vehicle for meaningful and impactful promotion. They reimagined “Business Carols” lyrics to incorporate the essence of underrepresented businesses into the holiday spirit.

The campaign utilized Spotify as its primary platform, integrating our Business Carols into playlists to increase listens. They also influenced Spotify's algorithm by playing the carols in 800 BMO branches nationwide – 24 hours a day, seven days a week – to gain enough popularity to be featured in big-box retailers' stores.

Radio and YouTube pre-roll ads blended with holiday music, seamlessly weaving our Business Carols into the public's festive media consumption. The carols were also performed live at the Eaton Centre, North America's busiest mall, intercepting shoppers with their new lyrics and introducing them to small businesses they couldn't find in the mall itself.

Finally, they added Shazam functionality to the carols to turn them from a passive listening experience to an active shopping one by allowing listeners to Shazam the song lyrics and then click directly from the lyrics to small business retailers.

By leveraging the ubiquity of holiday carols, Business Carols enhanced visibility for small businesses while showcasing BMO's commitment to diversity and inclusivity.

The campaign generated 69,422,683 impressions and 4,124,036 video views. The Eaton Centre activation engaged 125,000 participants, while streaming content accumulated 9,494,250 minutes. The online campaign catalogue received 166,800 visits - 27x higher than in 2023. Additionally, the initiative drove over 10,000 visits to each participating business during the crucial holiday season.

Credits

Client: BMO
CMO & Head, Social Impact: Catherine Roche
Head, Brand, Enterprise Social and Content: Jennifer Carli
Director, Brand Management and Enterprise Marketing & Content: Mallory Fantham
Senior Marketing Manager, Enterprise Marketing & Content: Ivana Dillon
Senior Marketing Manager, Brand & Sponsorship Advertising: Ann-Marie Beauchemin
Marketing Manager, Brand, Quebec: Camille Larose
Enterprise Marketing Coordinator: Aidan Bonner

Creative Agency: FCB Canada
CCO: Nancy Crimi-Lamanna
EVP, Global Creative Partner: Danilo Boer
ECD: Andrew MacPhee & Jeremiah McNama
ACD: Caleb McMullen & Hussein Rumaithi
Art Director: Hussein Rumaithi
Copywriter: Caleb McMullen
Designer: Rittee Prak
EVP, GM: Tracy Little
VP, Client Service Lead: Erin Howes
Group Account Director: Ali Gayowski
Account Executive: Sophia R’Bibo
Senior Broadcast Producers: Adriana Laborde & Alexandra Postans
Integrated Producer: Anastasia Gal
Business Lead MTL: Michael Watier
Project Lead MTL: Isabelle Dion
Translator MTL: Olivier Laplante
VP, Head of creative MTL: Sylvain Dufresne
Copywriter MTL: Marie-Christine Lessard
Art Director MTL : Leslie Castro
DOP/Editor MTL: Hugo Dubé-Bouchard
Producer MTL: Anick Rozon
CSO: Shelley Brown
Strategy Director: Stephanie Gyles

Post Production: 456 Studios
Videographer: Vipooshan Gangatharan
VP, Director of Studio Production: Kendra Plantt
Executive Producer: Elise Beauvais
Director of Editorial and Animation: Tyler Strahl
Creative Editor: Rod Reano

Audio: Grayson Matthews Audio
Music Director: Mark Domitric
Producer: Sharon Yokoyama
Sound Engineer: Vlad Nikolic

Audio MTL: La Majeure
Music Director MTL: Maxime Navert, Giacomo De Paola
Producer MTL: Cynthia Laroche
Sound Engineer MTL: Donevan Adams

Media: UM
EVP Client Business Partner: Kate Mateer
VP Client Business Partner: Ryan Hunter
Senior Director, Connections Planning: Sarah Sopik
Manager, Connections Planning: Marc-André Giasson