A national help line, made unmistakably Yukon
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Challenge
2-1-1 is a free help line and online directory that connects people to community and social services close to home. It runs nationally, but every province and territory operates its own, so the Yukon service was already there. What it didn't have was a reason for people to know the number before the day they needed it. And whatever I made had to sound like here while still looking like United Way, because the national brand carries a kind of trust a regional campaign would take years to build on its own.
Solution
I started with what Yukoners were actually dealing with: money, health care, mental health, housing and food. Those five became the campaign, gathered around a signpost and one line that does the whole job, Help Starts Here. The national look and feel stayed put and the local messaging slotted inside it, so the credibility came along for the ride. Then I built the campaign out across everything a Yukoner passes in a week: direct mailers, community posters, social ads, newspaper ads, radio spots, community television segments and transit ads.
Results
People met 2-1-1 where they already were. The mailbox, the bus shelter, the community channel, the radio in the truck. Five categories, one signpost, one number, told the same way in every format, so an ad heard on the drive home reinforced a poster seen in passing instead of competing with it. And because the creative stayed inside the national campaign, a Yukon-specific message arrived with United Way's credibility already attached, which is a lot to borrow for the price of keeping a colour palette.
Credits
- Creative direction, design and production
- Mikayla Ericsson
- Account management
- Bianca Jorgenson
- Copy
- Joe Fitzgerald
- Studio
- MBDC