We noticed a common trend with other viral live webcams: they were all pretty strange. Like the live stream of Shia LaBeouf watching all of his movies, or a man live streaming his grass growing on his front lawn. It seemed the more dull and mundane a live stream sounded, the more shares it got. Not because people were watching every second of it, but because it sounds so weird that you just have to check it out.

If there is one thing that Nova Scotians are crazy about, it's donair. Donair is essentially a local twist on a gyro or doner kebab. It's the most popular food in Nova Scotia. So popular that council recently voted to make Donair the official food of Halifax, Nova Scotia's capital city. So we partnered with King of Donair to create Donair Cam, a 24/7 live stream of Nova Scotia's favourite food.

Although Nova Scotians are crazy about donairs, there are good donairs and there are bad ones. Setting this up in the right donair shop was a key factor to Donair Cam's success. King of Donair is the original restaurant that introduced donairs to Canada in 1973 and is considered a piece of history by Nova Scotians. After installing the camera, we made it live and shared the link with the world.

As the viewers rapidly increased throughout the week, we leveraged this growing audience to continue to increase our reach. We placed cards in the frame prompting viewers to tweet various funny Donair Cam related things at certain influencers. This resulted in Donair Cam being mentioned on Twitter by several celebrities, being featured on multiple national TV shows and even a cable company running a poll to replace their Fireplace Channel with Donair Cam.

Media Outputs

Within one week Donair Cam was viewed in 159 countries with 22 years total watch time and over 47 million global impressions. Making it the most watched webcam in Nova Scotia Webcams' history. In addition to all of the earned news media, it was even featured on a number of popular TV shows including This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer Report and The Chew.

Target Audience Outcomes

The objective was to reach a younger audience in Nova Scotia who may not have even known about these live webcams. Donair Cam reached a totally new audience and has become a hilarious part of Nova Scotian pop culture. With the drastic increase of this younger audience, we have completely shifted the audience distribution with the majority of viewers now aged 18-44. This change has persisted and even three months after Donair Cam this age group still holds a 68% majority.

Nova Scotia Webcams Audience

Prior to Donair Cam:

(18–34) 13%

(35–44) 9%

(45–54) 14%

(55–64) 64%

(65+) 0%

3 Months After Donair Cam:

(18–34) 46%

(35–44) 22%

(45–54) 18%

(55–64) 11%

(65+) 3%