The Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation (CDIC) is currently in market with a more-than-usual integrated campaign to promote its role in protecting Canadians’ funds amid Financial Literacy Month.
Tamara Mason, CDIC’s head of communications and reporting, tells MiC that the work – with Dentsu X handling the buy, and Dentsu Creative devising the campaign – is part of an ongoing campaign to raise awareness of CDIC and how it can protect people’s money in the event of a bank failure, based on research showing that knowledge of deposit protection contributes to financial stability.
According to her, the target audience is young women (ages 18 to 49), as they have lower knowledge of CDIC’s role. “CDIC has made inroads with several demographics, however, women aged 18 to 49 remains the group with the lowest awareness, hence the reason behind some channels and media tactic choices that over index in their ability to reach this specific portion of our audience,” she says.
CIDC wanted to approach its target audience in a different way, using the strengths of each medium, says Julien Dupont, digital director at Dentsu x. That includes audio scripts and interviews tailored for podcasts, engaging content on Snapchat, QR codes and alerts on connected TV, as well as a live interview on a popular Quebec TV show.
“For a more chiseled approach, we concentrated on host-read podcasts with scripts adapted to true crime, a podcast genre that over-indexes heavily against our target, both in English and French,” Dupont says. “And The Peak provided a unique opportunity to have a spokesperson from the CDIC be interviewed, a way to reach our audience in a holistic fashion and bring the brand to life in a more engaging way.”
Overall, media investment has been consistent in previous campaigns, but the brand’s strategy this year is different, according to Dupont. While some high-performing channels, such as TV, have remained constant from past years, the brand is investing more in a mix of digital media, including TikTok, online podcasts and gaming video commercials, and has leveraged Financial Literacy Month to highlight them.
The mix of digital media was also ideal to effectively communicate CDIC’s mission and highlight the protection that Canadians enjoy in a more organic and engaging way, adds Mason. In its two main videos, CDIC is portrayed by people rescuing other citizens’ wallets just as they are about to lose them.
“Quarter-over-quarter, [women age 18 to 49] is the demographic segment that we focus on, and it is also a demographic that, sadly, does not consume a lot of finance-related content,” she says. “This puts them at risk of making uninformed decisions about the safety of their savings, so we need to come up with ingenious ways to connect and engage with them.”
