The Shattered
Mirror

The Shattered Mirror was a project created to help launch a major policy paper by Public Policy Forum (PPF), a non-partisan think tank based in Ottawa. The report analyzed and suggested policies regarding the lack of funds for real journalism and how the industry is affected by fake news.
  • Year: 2017
  • Client: Public Policy Forum
Shattered MIrror news coverage on phone

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Creating a memorable brand and story

The PPF wanted to use this report and campaign as a way to distinguish itself from other think tanks and policy organizations in the country. By creating a strong visual brand that would work for the printed report, social media campaign and microsite, there was a goal to attract national coverage and make history by having government and industry endorse the recommendations of the report and actually act on them.

Process

Full launch within 2 months?!

The initial ask from PPF was simply to brand and design the printed report in Eng/Fr to be supported by a micro-site as a way to advertise. Through understanding the main goal of the project, we proposed an addition of a social media engagement strategy in order to reach the widest audience when the highly anticipated report was released. Developing, producing and targeting 3 explainer videos allowed us to more effectively reach target demographics in both English and French. From project kick-off to go live, the team had less than 2 months to make everything happen.

 

Discover

  • Created a workshop and brainstorm session to further uncover objectives of the project
  • Researched similar reports, think tanks, policy makers to do a high level competitive analysis
  • Understand target audience of campaign
  • Conducted handful of interviews with journalists to gather pain points

 

Specify

  • Prioritize main objectives from workshop and brainstorm session
  • Prioritize our target audience groups
  • Scope feasibility of potential campaign artifacts
  • Define measurement of success (ex. Coverage of campaign in traditional media)

 

Ideate

  • Create branding + tone and voice for The Shattered Mirror campaign for client approval
  • Printed report design concepts
  • Video storyboarding and styling
  • UI concepts for microsite

 

Bring to life

  • Finalize full campaign strategy and roll out directly with PPF’s CEO
  • Work with print production artists to complete the 100+ page report for both languages
  • Art directed three 1min videos for micro-site
  • Created condensed versions of the videos for the social campaigns

 

Measure

  • Analytics reporting for video views and website interactions
  • Tracking of media reach and campaign coverage

Deliverables

Design to mini-campaign

Brand/voice and tone, logo design, art direction, media relations campaign, social media strategy (earned and paid), micro-website, videos editing, design and creation of The Shattered Mirror report (French and English)

Shattered Mirror Book Inside Page

SPREADS OF PRINTED REPORTS

Shattered Mirror Book Inside Page
Shattered Mirror Book Inside Page

MICRO SITE

VIDEO EXPLAINERS

Outcome

Great Success

The success of this mandate led to ongoing work marketing their reports and summits, including on site interactive displays, a summit event app, as well as managing digital marketing efforts using native newsletter campaigns as well as social media.

 

Twitter

22,940 video views
54,499 impressions

Facebook

60,154 video views
156,080 impressions

Newspaper

Toronto Star (front page) The Globe and Mail, the National Post and La Presse

Live News

coverage on national news networks

5 years after launch

6 of 12 recommendations, have seen or are about to see the light of day in one form or another

Creation of the Journalistic Labour Tax

Credit brought forth in 2019; and is arguably the most important and least intrusive form of support for news organizations

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