Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly - Creativity is the Most Powerful Business Tool: Canadian Marketing Awards 2026

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

This week, we look at the level of advertising creativity north of the border.We’ll talk about a campaign that used real “sleep talking” to sell mattresses.We’ll explore a remarkable idea that transformed the annual migration of penguins into a protest march.And we’ll look at a campaign that convinced people to donate to a cause that started 45 years ago, but had faded from memory.We know you want to listen to all the ads in this show. On the off-chance you don’t, subscribe ad-free here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Podcasting is a bit of a solitary pursuit, yet it takes a village to produce a podcast. But once an episode beams from the Terra Stream to your earbuds, we don't get to see you. Talk to you. So, we're excited that through apostrophe all ears, we've opened up a direct line between us, a forum to chat about episodes, about marketing. Just tap the link in the description. This is an apostrophe podcast production. We're going to show you.

our big new studio baker. That's a spicy meat board. What love doesn't conquer. Alka-Seltzer will. What a relief. You're under the influence with Terry O'Reilly. Director Ben Leonberg spent three years making his latest horror film titled Good Boy. What made this movie unusual was the fact the star of the movie was a canine.

Actually, it was Leonberg's eight-year-old dog named Indy. Indy is a Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever. These dogs are the smallest retrievers bred to lure ducks out into the open for hunters. Leonberg doesn't use Indy for hunting, but he did cast him as the protagonist in his movie. The film follows Indy as he protects his owner from evil that only the dog can see. named after movie character Indiana Jones, Indy spent more than 400 days in front of the camera to make the movie. The film is shot from Indy's perspective, so Leonberg had to design a camera rig that could shoot 19 inches from the floor, which was Indy's eye level. That meant Leonberg spent most of the shoot on his knees or bent over.

When he needed Indy to look in a specific direction, he would have a crew member quack like a duck. or he would give Indy a weird command that he didn't understand, so he would tilt his head in confusion. And if he needed Indy to run to a specific spot, they would just leave a trail of salmon and beef-flavored kibble. Good Boy premiered at a film and television festival in Austin, Texas, where Indy won the Howl of Fame Award for Best Canine Performance. But that was just puppy play.

Last January, at the Astra Film Awards, Indy won the award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller. But here's the best part. Indy beat out actors like Ethan Hawk and Allison Bree. The annual contest is judged by journalists, critics, filmmakers, and others in the entertainment industry who are members of the Hollywood Creative Alliance. The Executive Vice President of the Astra Awards

said he was a bit surprised when he learned the majority of the 325 members of the Creative Alliance voted for a dog. Leonberg and Indy were unable to accept the award in person, so they sent this video. Hi, I'm Ben Leenberg, the director of Good Boy, here with my dog, the goodest boy himself. On behalf of Indy, we are so grateful and thrilled. to be recognized for his work,

in a movie he does not totally understand he was in. Indy is honored to accept this award, especially knowing that he's standing alongside performers who didn't even need to be bribed with treats in order to hit their marks. Thank you again. We are so, so delighted. A movie trade publication called Indy,

quote, one of the most emotive performers of his generation, regardless of species. It was a memorable moment, as Indy was the first animal, to ever win the acting award. There are many advertising award shows each year, including the Canadian Marketing Awards,

which were held recently in Toronto. It celebrates creativity and effectiveness. The work was smart, surprising, and in one case, a well-known store made a booty call. You're under the influence. I attended the 104th annual Canadian Marketing Awards recently. I've been to all of them. Kidding.

Sort of. It's an opportunity to take the temperature of the Canadian advertising industry and judge the level of creativity in any given year. There were dozens of terrific campaigns awarded that night, and I want to tell you about a few of them that really caught my eye. For example, Volvo, was awarded for an interesting campaign. The campaign goal was to say that no matter what car you drive,

there's a little bit of Volvo inside it. As you may know, Volvo's long-standing positioning in the marketplace is safety. While other carmakers chose style, speed, or utility as their marketing platforms, Volvo has stuck with safety. Back in 1959, Volvo did something highly unusual in the car category. It came up with an important innovation. Most car improvements remain the proprietary property of that particular car maker, but Volvo chose to share it openly with the world.

That innovation was the three-point seatbelt. In 1959, Volvo engineer Nils Bolin invented the three-point seatbelt. And to make everyone safer, Volvo released the patent to every office. automaker for free. It has been credited with saving over a million lives, and I think that number is conservative. The germ of this advertising idea originated in France, but the way it was adapted in Canada was award-winning.

In a campaign that promoted the fact that there was a little bit of Volvo in every car, Volvo did something else most carmakers would never dream of. It featured competitors' cars in their advertising. A video on YouTube showed various car brands from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and beyond, and showed what all these different cars had in common. Three-point seat belts. While Volvo has long been associated with safety, that conviction was slowly disappearing in a market saturated with technical claims.

So Volvo needed to reassert its place as a safety leader. Along with the video, Volvo ran the campaign on social media, media in magazines and at Volvo dealerships. But to really drive it home in Canada specifically, Gray advertising created big billboards showing Volvo's three-point seatbelt innovation, saying there's a little bit of Volvo in every car, and place those billboards across the street from Ford, Chevrolet, Nissan, Honda, and BMW dealerships. In a car market growing by just 0.5%, Volvo's campaign reached,

a 13% sales growth, a 46% jump in leads, and had a three-times return on investment. Before the campaign, only 7% of car buyers attributed the seatbelt innovation to Volvo. After the campaign, that number climbed to 45% in just a few weeks. And one more thing I never realized. The three-point seatbelt forms a perfect V across your chest. the first initial in Volvo. IKEA won several trophies at the Canadian Marketing Awards. Like all good advertising, the campaign idea solved a marketing problem.

When it comes to mattresses, online reviews of IKEA mattresses are 95% positive, which is good, except no one trusts online reviews anymore. Online shopping sites are flooded with fake reviews. 40% of online reviews are 40% of online reviews are As a result, IKEA is way down the list of stores that people think of when it comes to buying mattresses. So, in order to remind people they can get a good night's sleep on an IKEA mattress, IKEA decided to target people who couldn't sleep.

But instead of just producing another typical mattress ad, IKEA and its advertising agency rethink decided to leverage insomnia. In the middle of the night, on Valentine's Day, they slid into the Instagram DMs of 700 people with just two words. You up? Now, a middle of the night, you up DM, is the universal signal for a booty call. And when people can't sleep, many start scrolling through their phones. When people saw the you up message and answered in the middle of the night,

IKEA responded to them saying, quote, Sounds like you might need a better mattress and offered a voucher for a 15% discount. Some respondents even got a free mattress. The U-Up DM message was definitely bold. Most brands wouldn't dare do it. But as one journalist said, IKEA knows how to be discerningly cheeky.

Then IKEA took the idea one step further and placed digital You Up billboards across from condo buildings. The billboard only lit up in the middle of the night. Then something funny started to happen. It ignited a mattress war. Sleep Country, the number one mattress seller in Canada, put up billboards that asked you up and answered by saying, sorry, was asleep.

It offered people 25% off a new mattress and suggested people block late-night DMs with sleep. Then the brick, the number two mattress seller, got in on the act. It posted billboards that said, you up. Then under that was Sleep Country's reply, sorry, was asleep. Then under that, the brick wrote, who dis? And promised to beat anyone's mattress price. Then a condom brand snuck into the conversation and posted ads saying,

You Up, together with their logo. It was the first time IKEA had ever attempted a time-sensitive, overnight media strategy. But it worked for three reasons. First, the timing was perfect, as it targeted insomniacs who were scrolling between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Second, the campaign began online, then moved to billboards that were strategically placed across from sleepless condo dwellers.

And lastly, the cheekiness of the idea attracted press across the country and a lot of shares on social media. With just two words, you up, IKEA turned a late-night flirt into a successful sleep solution. When we come back, Penguins protest tariffs. If you're enjoying this episode, you might also like Red Carpet Marketing, the business of a award shows from our 2021 season, where we tell the story of how Bonnie Rates record label had dropped her. Then she ended up winning the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, selling 5 million copies. You'll find the episode on your favorite podcast app. Every year, penguins do an annual migration. As you no doubt have seen in documentaries like

March of the Penguins, the cute, cuddly birds waddle up to 3,000 kilometers, in single file, defined ice-free environments for breeding and raising their chicks. In other words, they follow the sun. When President Trump recently announced he was placing large tariffs on Canada, it ruffled a lot of feathers.

On a long list of countries and territories, Trump put different tariff amounts on different places, including a 10% tariff on the Herd and MacDonald Islands near Antarctica. No humans lived on those islands. The press had a field day with the news, saying Trump had started a trade war with a remote island of penguins. The Rethink Advertising Agency also does work for Penguins International,

an organization that is dedicated to penguin conservation, as their numbers are dwindling due to ever-increasing environmental threats. Penguins International struggles for public attention and funding. But when Trump's tariff announcement unexpectedly included the penguin inhabited islands, the Internet exploded with rage, creating a cultural moment that Penguins International could turn into action. So Rethink and Penguins International decided to transform the penguin's annual single-file migration into a statement. Protest March of the Penguins became a symbolic anti-tariff protest. By reframing their annual march as part of the wider political demonstrations happening around the globe,

the campaign used humor and real-time culture to make penguin conservation impossible to ignore. First, they streamed the Penguins March live on YouTube. And there, it was treated like a political protest march and was hosted by a former Bloomberg news anchor. Welcome to the protest march of the penguins. Today the penguins are marching against the tariffs placed on them. Thank you for joining. If you can picture it, as the news anchor talked about the tariff protests and the climate concerns that endangered the islands,

the penguins waddled in perfect single file. And for all the world, it truly looked like the penguins were marching in protest. Word spread fast about the live stream with over 3.4 million people tuning in. Between worldwide social media shares, international and local news stories, print media coverage and user-generated content, the protest march of the penguins earned over one billion media impressions. And they did it all with no paid media. Not one advertising dollar was spent. Donations to Penguins International increased 453%.

Well, that does it for the protest march of the penguins. Remember to support the penguins and the conservation efforts of Penguins International at penguins international.org slash donate. Thank you for tuning in. The campaign turned Trump's tariffs into an opportunity for penguin conservation by doing what penguins do best. Marching. The perennial question in the advertising business is,

how do you get people to not only see? sit through your advertising, which is a huge task in itself, but more importantly, how do you get people to engage with your advertising? Especially in an age where you can skip an ad with the click of a button or the swipe of a finger. Facing that challenge, Volkswagen Canada came up with a fun idea to promote its new ID buzz. One look at the VW ID buzz, and you instantly know that its retro design comes from the iconic Volkswagen buzz. of years gone by. First, Volkswagen Canada became a sponsor

of the Toronto International Film Festival, also known as TIF, one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. The iconic Volkswagen Bus has an interesting connection to the film festival. The reason? Volkswagen Buses have appeared in classic movies for over 70 years.

Think of Little Miss Sunshine or Back to the Future or Fast Times at Ridge, Mount High. So to reaffirm the VW bus as a cinematic icon and to launch the new VW ID buzz, Volkswagen turned 70 years of cinematic history into a live social-first scavenger hunt. The promotion was called Volkswagen Buzz Codes. Here's how it worked.

When people spotted a Volkswagen bus in any movie or TV show from the last 70 years, they could take a screen cap of the VW's license plate, posted online with the name of the movie or TV show, tag at VW Canada, along with the hashtag Buzzcode. Those license plate numbers then turned into promo codes that unlocked prizes. It was a smart idea because it got people to actively look for VWs. It was also fun as people began flogues. flooding social media with buzz codes.

For example, one movie fan posted the VW bus license plate from the classic movie, Field of Dreams. VW responded saying, Home run, you just won a VW prize, check your DMs. While there were lots of prizes and VW swag, the grand prize was two VIP tickets to the TIF opening gala. Buzzcoats was a big success, attracting 146. million earned media impressions. Always a good yardstick to see how popular an idea is.

Engagement with Volkswagen's brand shot up 259 percent, the highest of the year. Followers of the VW brand on social media increased 868%, and traffic to the VW website ticked up 414%. It's safe to say, buzz codes generated a lot of buzz around the new VW ID buzz. When we come back, the Marathon of Hope continues. In 1980, Terry Fox united Canada with a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. Terry ran 5,373 kilometers in 143 days, starting in St. John's Newfoundland. He ran the equivalent of one full marathon,

every day. His hope? To raise $1 from each of Canada's then 24 million people. Terry Fox wasn't able to finish that run. His marathon of hope ended outside Thunder Bay, but it was one of the most powerful acts of courage in Canadian history. While there is a near universal awareness of Terry Fox, the understanding of the Terry Fox Foundation's role in funding cancer research remained limited.

The Foundation is uniting Canada's brightest cancer researchers, institutions, and icons through the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centers Network. It signals a new era in cancer research, but it needs ongoing funding. So working with a creative advertising agency named Diamond, a new platform was developed, a new identity was created, and it was all launched on World Cancer, day with a powerful two-minute film. The goal was to re-engage people in the fight to cure cancer and to do the one thing Terry Fox couldn't do, complete the marathon. The film was titled, Finish It. As it begins, we hear Terry Fox running with his trademark gate, but we don't see him.

It's a dark early morning road, and the camera reveals Terry Fox alone running. Then we hear the tragically hip. There's no simple explanation for anything important. Terry Fox gets to the top of a hill and stops. Under pressure, under pressure. Then as the camera slowly pulls back, we see hundreds and hundreds of people running behind Terry, people as far as the eye can see.

As Terry Fox stands there, looking at the camera, people run past him to continue his marathon, even though Terry can't. I said to people before that I've been in my very best to make it. I'm not going to give up, and that's true. But I might not make it. And if I don't make it, the marathon will better continue. Words on the screen say, finish it.

Terry Fox started a marathon against cancer. Together, we can end it. The two-minute film is incredibly powerful. I urge you to watch it on YouTube. Search Terry Fox, finish it. And make sure you have a box of Kleenex beside you. When the short film was being shot, word went out for volunteers to run.

Hundreds of people showed up. An amputee who resembled Terry Fox was cast and using special effects and archival footage, his face was transformed into Terry's face. And a never before heard stripped-down version of courage by the Tragically Hip was chosen. There was a connection between Terry Fox and Gord Downey, as both went across Canada with cancer.

Rob Baker, lead guitarist for the hip, said this about the track. I was immediately struck by this haunting, reimagined, stripped-back version of courage. We were really profoundly moved. People started asking for that version of courage, so a limited edition 45 was made, which you could only get by donating.

2,000 copies sold out in 30 minutes. Then the real results of finish it started to roll in. Donations jumped 230%. Website traffic to the Terry Fox Foundation spiked 1,916%. There were over 392,000. thousand online reactions to the campaign, 100% positive, 0% hate. Celebrities like Ryan Reynolds, Celine Dion, and Hugh Jackman were photographed by the public

walking around wearing finish-it t-shirts, as were bands including the Bare Naked Ladies and Arkells. The film was shown on broadcast networks in cinemas during games at the Scotia Bank Arena and during the Canadian broadcast of the Super Bowl pre-game show. Stills from the film were posted on billboards. As a result, the Terry Fox Foundation enjoyed a record year of donations. When I sat in the audience at the Marketing Awards, I was so impressed by the creativity. The Finish It Campaign for the Terry Fox Foundation won a Best of Show award that night, as it should.

It wasn't just a moving film. It generated record-breaking donations 45. years after Terry finished his run. I thought the cheeky U-Up campaign for IKEA was fun and effective. The mattress category is a busy one, and IKEA managed to wedge itself into the conversation using nothing but creativity. The protest march of the penguins took a familiar annual migration of penguins and transformed it into a protest march against tariffs and climate change.

Such an arresting visual. So simple, so smart. As was the VW Buzzcoats idea. The 70 years of VW cameos in movies was the perfect way to do it, and a perfect tie-in with TIF. Movie lovers played along, and it gave the new VWID buzz a big, buz-y launch. And may I remind you, all of these ideas were made in Canada, proving, yet again, that creativity is the most of most powerful business tool when you're under the influence. I'm Terry O'Reilly.

This episode was recorded in the Terstream Mobile Recording Studio. Producer Debbie O'Reilly, Chief Sound Engineer Jeff Devine, theme music by Casey Pick, Jeremiah Pick, and James Aiton. Tunes provided by APM music. Follow me at Terry O. Influence. This podcast is powered by ACAST. Terry's top slogans of all time. Number two.

De Beers. A diamond is forever. See you next week.