Manulife is the insurance company on a mission to help Canadians live healthier lives. As part of its commitment, the brand has been supporting the Heart & Stroke Foundation to fund life-saving research. We needed a way to take their annual Ride for Heart fundraising race into the virtual world.

The goal was to raise awareness to the cause, while encouraging participation and helping the Manulife brand own the virtual event.

After looking into runner and rider's behaviors, we noticed a popular trend happening—they were turning their routes into anything, from pigs to roses and more, all for fun. So, we decided to join in on the action, all for a good cause.

Introducing Routes for Heart—the digital one day event that encouraged Canadians to create a heart-shaped route on their activity maps of choice. For every heart-shaped route shared, Manulife donated to heart and stroke research.

Participants used their preferred tracking apps to create heart routes such as Strava, Fitbit of Apple Fitness. No opt-in need.

Our target audience was broad-every Canadian who wanted to help raise money for heart health by being active during the annual Ride for Heart event. As a key cause partner, we needed something unique to make the virtual event ownable for the Manulife brand.

Through our research, we discovered the fun drawings runners and riders were making on their fitness app maps and channelled that behavior into a fundraising and awareness message.

To meet our audience where they are, we let participants use their own apps and simply upload a screenshot with the campaign hashtag. By eliminating any barrier to entry and leveraging apps our users were already using, we gained over 8,000 active routes in just over 24 hours.

The activation took place over just 24 hours, and all the content was user-generated on their own time and routes. For the first time there were no geography boundaries for the Ride for Heart event, as it was fully virtual, reaching people in all corners of Canada. At the end of the 24 hour period, over 8,000 people created and shared their own heart-shaped routes, earning an organic reach of 97 million.

In just 24 hours, over 8,000 people created their own heart-shaped routes and posted on social media, earning an organic reach of 97 million. Manulife was recognized as a key partner for the cause and sentiment was positive all around.