As a partially government funded organization, the available budget to support a traditional mass advertising campaign has never been an option for ROM. Having been closed for many months due to the pandemic, our objective became to support ROM in remaining culturally relevant. Public relations was imperative to tackle the task at hand and help authentic this message through third party endorsement. Not only did we need to identify a strong narrative that tapped into topical conversation, but also with extremely limited paid media budget it needed to be the main propelling force of communications.

With an outdated perception and foot traffic dwindling, the ROM was at an inflection point. Our initial objective was to drive foot traffic, but when the pandemic hit, planning shifted. Our goal became to drive relevancy of the ROM among the Ontario community when its doors were physically closed, and encourage visitors once the museum reopened. Additionally, we looked to expand ROM’s reach beyond the current age groups interested in the museum and connect with a new younger demographic to view this cultural institution in a fresh way. But with the physical museum closed and limited budgets, our challenge became to come up with an idea to drive top-of-mind awareness and engagement with the ROM without being able to step inside the doors.

Historically, the largest traffic drivers to the museum have been new attractions. Therefore, to insert the ROM into the epicentre of culture in a unique way, we looked to create the most talked about exhibition in ROM history.

As the world lived through history, we chose to focus on how it was affecting our future, providing a platform for youth to answer the widely asked question: “how are our kids doing?” through their own creative expression. We created #MyPandemicStory, the museum’s first ever crowd sourced exhibition, completely populated by children. The initiative invited young Ontarians, between the ages of four to 18, to share their stories, experiences and perspectives on life during the pandemic through original creative works in any medium. This could be in the form of a song, painting, video, or 3D sculpture submitted to the ROM website or through social media by tagging #MyPandemicStory.

We saw a gap in the COVID-19 narrative and looked to take a fresh take, providing a platform for kids and teens to be heard and leave their mark on history. To ensure our message was positively received we partnered with children’s mental health experts at CAMH and SickKids Hospital to shine a light on the impact on our kids allowing them to process their experience through creativity. First we called on kids, teens and their parents to submit their own #MyPandemicStory for the chance to be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the ROM. We encapsulated our message through owned content, leveraged ROM curators to drive the call to action through earned outreach and engaged educators to inspire their students through ROM’s school networks. When the exhibition opened, our young artists took the spotlight driving people to visit the resulting exhibition through media relations.

Kicking off in April 2021, with Ontario facing continual province-wide lockdowns and school closures, the story offered a counterpoint to the doom and gloom of the daily rising numbers while still being topical. Throughout the two and a half month submission phase we continued to evolve the story, capturing more attention by leveraging multiple spokespeople to bring the story to life including ROM curators and entrants.

Every time we secured a new hit through the duration of the submission window, the museum saw an influx of entries.

To encourage entries through social, our videos were used as ads shared across TikTok and Instagram, targeting parents and teens to encourage submissions with complimenting influencers leading by example to inspire entries. Once the museum opened its doors in October, we identified exhibition artists to share their story during a media preview, driving foot traffic to ROM with lines wrapped around the block.

In just over six months, this initiative generated 237M impressions across traditional and social channels with every major outlet covering the initiative multiple times.

During the campaign engagement with the ROM was at an all time high, increasing website traffic by 17%, of which, 91% were new users, proving we broadened the reach of the institution. Further to this, the #MyPandemicStory page saw over 49,000 visitors, making it the most visited page on the ROM site. The groundswell of awareness was so powerful that not only did we drive a large volume of submissions but an anonymous donor stepped forward, interested in sponsoring the exhibition, a massive win for a partially government funded institution that has been closed for nearly 12 months.

Over 2,700 submissions were received from all across Ontario, varying in age ranges, emotions and artistic expression with 60 pieces ultimately chosen for the gallery space, although all pieces submitted were able to be viewed online.

The exhibition opened in October 2021 to incredible response from the public including children, parents, educators and beyond with line ups out the door of families. The response has moved into social media with education boards highlighting the initiative and their student’s selected artwork and encouraging people to visit this powerful glimpse of youth experience of the pandemic.

Through this physical exhibition, people can reflect on and process their own memories and feelings and hopefully we will collectively come to a better understanding of this unprecedented experience.