Tourisme Montréal has launched a new brand platform that aims to inspire and persuade travelers to visit the city.

Already available in Canada, the U.S. and Europe, the “Your playful side awaits” platform includes a 90-second ad in English and French that highlights the experiences the city offers visitors. Tourisme is promoting its launch with a 360-degree campaign that will run this summer in collaboration with creative agency LG2. The company said the campaign, which shares the same name as the platform, will evolve with the upcoming seasons and be tailored to various languages and markets in North America.

“We are promoting ‘Your playful side awaits’ in several touchpoints, depending on the market, but also depending on travellers’ interests,” Michèle Duchesneau, AVP of strategy at Touché!, agency that is handling the media buying, tells Media in Canada. “We developed a new approach this year that allows us to inspire travellers continuously but that also includes smaller campaigns tailored to some specific experiences that Montreal can offer. For example, ‘Your foodie side awaits’, ‘Your curious side awaits’ and ‘Your festive side awaits’.”

The campaign is supported by video ads, local partners and connected TV spots. OOH creatives, including hand-painted murals and digital billboards, are also being deployed in specific neighborhoods where the brand’s target audience is located.

Duchesneau says Tourisme has already had success with that media mix in the past. “The idea was also to push it further to find new ways to bring the platform to life. We reuse certain key locations to increase memorability, but the new platform allows us to add a level of creativity that brings out the playful side of Montreal,” she says.

The brand seeks to attract the attention of high-value guests and travellers who immerse themselves in a destination, embracing its heritage and culture, according Duchesneau, who adds that this demographic represent a large number of people who are more likely to visit Montreal.

“The targeting of this campaign was important to make sure that we reach a qualified audience as their interests vary depending on the market,” she says. “As we want to inspire them all, we need to strategically adapt our approach to align with the experiences they are looking for and find different ways to reach them.”

Tourisme Montréal chief marketing officer Sylvie Charette tells MiC that the team has been positioning Montreal as wide-open playground for years but, for the first time, they wanted to develop a strategy focused on what the city brings to visitors’ lives. “The new platform refocuses our communications to visitor aspirations, before talking about what Montreal has to offer. It’s a change in perspective but aligns with the brand’s long-standing positioning,” Charette says.

The launch of the platform is also timely, she says, as travel is high on the list of household priorities in the wake of the pandemic. “Despite travellers’ intentions to better control their spending, the tourism sector shows no signs of abating,” Charette says.