Seeking to meet the needs of a fraught real estate market, Mortgage Professionals Canada (MPC) has launched a new, digital-first national campaign to raise awareness of the value of talking to an expert to buy a home or secure a mortgage.
The shift in direction follows the addition of a new president and CEO, Lauren van den Berg, and director of communications, Cecely Roy, in the past year. Roy says the industry association’s marketing and advertising efforts have traditionally focused on tactics such as OOH and TV spots. Breaking with that tradition, the new “There’s a better way to start,” campaign is digitally focused, featuring a 30-second video about “the stress people experience around housing and mortgages, and relating to how prevalent those feelings are given the high interest rate environment that we’re in,” Roy explains. The campaign launched over the weekend, on October 15.
The video explains how MPC’s members “are able to walk [home buyers and home owners] through the process, alleviating some of the anxiety and point them in the right direction and provide a solution that’s best suited for their financial situation today.”
According to MPC’s latest Semi-Annual State of the Housing Market report released last month, the share of non-homeowners in Canada who think they will never be able to buy a home has increased by 15% over a six-month period, and when it comes to homeowners, 69% of respondents who do have a mortgage say they’re anxious about renewing.
More specifically, MPC’s report indicates that Millenials and Gen Z are the demographic most likely to work with a mortgage broker.
Based on the audience data, the move to digital was an important shift after years of traditional media placement, not only in terms of reaching audiences but also because it can be difficult to find the right information online.
“With so many Canadians scouring online for information, trying to figure out what’s best for them, which results in so much conflicting information and options to choose from. Our message is: stop doomscrolling and talk to an expert who can provide real answers,” MPC CEO Lauren van den Berg said in a release.
The new campaign will run paid media activations featuring the video (and some static ads) across social media (Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok), YouTube and Google, as well as programmatic (audio, video, and display) ads on platforms like Spotify and other contextual (via keywords and search phrases) placements.
The campaign is running nationally in English, with some French-language placements, with Roy noting that a Quebec-specific campaign will be activated in the near future.
Plus, while the “There’s a better way to start,” campaign is digital-first, Roy says there will still be some OOH activations to support the messaging.
MPC worked with its agency, Creative Currency, on the campaign, which also facilitated the media buy.
