Our idea was to illustrate the unique story of one community brought together through food and meal preparation.

A short film, focusing on an immigrant Canadian family, was created to demonstrate how cultural differences can make it even more difficult for people in new neighbourhoods to understand and adapt to their environment. In the film, Sama shares the food that so strongly connects her to her previous home in Syria with her Canadian classmates for the very first time. While she had already been accepted by her new community, the act of sharing a piece of her culture connects her with her classmates in an entirely new way. It shows how powerful food and meal preparation can be in not only bringing families together, but in bringing communities closer as well.

Prior to launching the videos, a survey was commissioned to shine a light on how Canadians feel about their neighbors and neighborhoods. The results were shared with news media, and key statistics were posted on social media to spark a national conversation. We then launched Sama’s story nationally and almost entirely on social media, where our target lives. A long-format 2:40 video was created to drive engagement and emotionally connect the brand to our target, along with a 30-second version to maximize reach and awareness. The entire campaign, which centered around school lunches, was first launched during the back-to-school timeframe to increase relevance.

PR was used to prime our target prior to launch, and then to amplify the campaign message by sustaining a conversation on social media using food and lifestyle experts to talk about food, new Canadians and neighbourhoods.

The videos had over 16M total 0:03sec views across YouTube and Facebook. On YouTube alone, there were almost 8.9M 0:03sec views and we more than doubled our projected completion rate to 2.2 million – a key measurement proving audience engagement in Sama’s story. The average % of the long-format video viewed is also 10% higher than Whirlpool’s average, despite most other videos being shorter in length.

Also, our cost-per-completed view is $0.21 (less than half of the $0.52 projected), thereby achieving better engagement with less spending.

Sama’s Lunchbox was featured in over 250 publications including The Drum, LBB, Breakfast Television Toronto, Toronto Sun, National Post, Morning Star, Canadian Business Journal, and a full page spread in the Globe and Mail (one of Canada’s most widely read newspapers).

The campaign also had over 150,000 social media engagements, which led to the brand gaining a 400% increase in positive sentiment on Facebook.