Causeforce Case Study

Background

Since 2003, The Collective's media division, INTENT Media has aligned with CauseForce in an effort to generate participant leads and registrations in high profile fundraising events including the Weekend to End Women’s Cancer, Ride to Conquer Cancer, One Walk to Conquer Cancer, and others.

CauseForce works with hospital foundations and other not-for-profit organizations to help them raise funds and recruit participants for their mission. CauseForce events deliver thousands of new constituents, tens of thousands of new donors, as well as generate millions of dollars for critical initiatives throughout Canada and other parts of the world.
 

Beneficiaries

In 2015, The Toronto Weekend to End Women’s Cancers was re-launched with a new brand positioning as OneWalk to Conquer Cancer, a one-day 25 km walk and festival experience. The new event allowed participants to raise money for different types of cancer research and care at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

The goal was to shift the focus of the event from only women’s cancers and a primarily female target audience. Statistics showed that over 97,000 men and over 93,000 women were diagnosed with cancer in Canada, and over 76,600 people died from the disease in 2015 alone.

OneWalk To Conquer Cancer needed to activate communities of women and men, cancer survivors, donors and all their supporters around a common goal, to conquer all forms of cancer.

Formulate

Utilizing our refined and sophisticated media planning, media measurement and media activation approach, we were able to ensure maximum optimization and performance in the case of ever-shrinking media budgets and a crowded peer-to-peer event space.

In our longstanding history with CauseForce, our media buys were aimed at generating traction, implementing and tracking key metrics, media sponsorships, and content opportunities. We analyzed the learning from each week and each year, and leveraged them to maximize on challenging objectives.

With that in mind, and with all the data to optimize and leverage, we recognized that an optimal approach is to really activate at the media ownership level and build the multi-channel strategy from top – down.

Motivate

To capitalize on the opportunity, INTENT developed a fully integrated and activated media strategy, including a more structured approach to the recruitment initiative. The shift was to leverage the vast majority of dollars with one organization who could create a platform to activate all media channels and content/talent opportunities in a more integrated way.

INTENT Media issued an RFP and awarded Bell Media the engagement based on their ability to participate with us as a true multi-channel, multi-market partner. They proposed ways to galvanize their multiple TV and radio properties, as well as their digital and out of home media, bringing additional assets such as recognizable talent, news, editorial, and other content into the mix.

Activate

Agency and client were looking for a brand champion. Bell put their best foot forward, acting as official OneWalk ambassadors, with representation across all their brands, including very senior leadership who took a particularly active role in engaging their teams. They proved to be socially responsible corporate citizens and created zealots as they spread the message from the top – down, with 58 members raising just under $100,000, ensuring their placement among the top OneWalk corporate fundraisers for 2015.

Measures of Success

• All of Bell Media’s properties met or exceeded their expectations in terms of attributable leads and registrations as well as value-to-spend ratio and talent and content integration
• The INTENT Media method allowed CauseForce, the hospital foundation and the agency to come together ‘under one tent’ to co-create a more multi-channel approach.
• The new strategy allowed INTENT to gain traction and commitment at a much more senior level than previous years due to a) greater leverage and higher dollars; and b) presenting an opportunity to define execution in a way that was traditionally unheard of.
• Executive/Senior partners were initiated into the planning process at a much earlier stage and had access to key stakeholders and information.
• The 2015 rebranded event was considered a success in its first year.
• The Jewish General Hospital Foundation of Montreal and the Alberta Cancer Foundation waited for results of year one and have come onboard with their own OneWalk events for 2016.