Ammirati Puris, Advertising Agency In order to bring Blue Light’s advertising strategy of ‘Free Your Time’ to life, the team created a ‘mock’ petition to lobby the Ontario government for an additional long weekend in June. The media challenge was to establish the Blue Light’s image campaign and find unique, non-traditional media to build awareness for & circulate the petition. Blue Light’s ‘Freeday’ campaign was a 2-pronged combination of petition seeding and mainstream media.Petition Seeding:Given its grassroots nature, the Internet was chosen as the lead medium to support Blue Light’s advocacy for more ‘free time’Using a targeted e-mail campaign, signatures were solicited for the petition lobbying the government for an additional long weekend in JuneThe e-mail drove consumers to www.freeyourtime.ca to sign the petitionOnce the e-mail campaign became ‘viral’, a ground-swell swept across the country100,000+ signatures were collected via the Internet campaign‘Mock’ demonstrations & protests were held in major markets to build street level ‘creds’ for the crusade and to collect signaturesAn additional 25,000+ signatures were collected ‘on the street’As the campaign grew & response became greater, we recognized an opportunity to go ‘mass’ The media team was instrumental in getting Blue Light’s ‘free time’ positioning into consumer consciousness. This multi-level campaign constantly changed & evolved to react to the groundswell as consumers embraced the free time proposition.As the campaign rolled out and gained momentum, the media team had to react quickly to capitalize on various media opportunities.In addition, we were able to stretch a very limited media budget by securing free ‘money can’t buy’ editorial content in 180+ media (TV, Radio & Daily Newspapers) valued at more than $500,000! A simple ‘mock’ petition to lobby the Ontario government for an additional summer long weekend in June - for more ‘free time’ - grew into a bona fide ‘Freeday’ phenomenon.125,000+ consumers’ signatures were collected in support of the petition and 23,000,000+ impressions were generated amongst the target. Not only did we generate tons of awareness, however, for the first time in 5 years, Blue Light experienced positive business results - 10%+ in market share versus year ago.

The media team was instrumental in getting Blue Light’s ‘free time’ positioning into consumer consciousness. This multi-level campaign constantly changed & evolved to react to the groundswell as consumers embraced the free time proposition.As the campaign rolled out and gained momentum, the media team had to react quickly to capitalize on various media opportunities.In addition, we were able to stretch a very limited media budget by securing free ‘money can’t buy’ editorial content in 180+ media (TV, Radio & Daily Newspapers) valued at more than $500,000!