Entered by: Ottawa Tourism

Ottawa has always been renowned for cultural offerings. In 2022, the team chose to bring culture back in a big way for both visitors and locals alike. After so much time spent at home, the timing was right for a campaign aimed at the break travellers had been missing out on during the pandemic – a cultural refuel.

After two years of global languish, Unofficial Museums was a breath of fresh air for the local tourism community. Ottawa has long been referred to as “The City of Museums”. Yet, culture doesn't only live in officially curated artefacts and masterpieces. It stems from the grassroots of the city and lives everywhere. It’s the food, the music, the architecture, and the people.

Ottawa’s culture is richer and more vibrant than many would expect. So, the team decided to highlight these part of their cultural landscape, on the same level as those well-established, official institutions.

To cement their position as Canada’s City of Museums, the Ottawa team opened up 76 new Unofficial Museums that included a wide variety of cafes, festivals, tours, restaurants, and other hidden gems. The intent of this campaign was to usher back in travel with cultural inspiration.

The initial stages of Unofficial Museums were built off an initiative in 2021 during the pandemic to engage citizens to tell the team their favourite things about Ottawa when the local community needed support the most. The #MyOttawa Local’s Guide saw residents vote for their favourite local businesses, venues, and hidden gems. These votes were turned into the cornerstones of the Unofficial Museums campaign as the must-see and -do experiences in Ottawa – with a cultural twist – for visitors and locals alike.

The placemaking plan behind Unofficial Museums was a way to celebrate, activate and include the whole city in the campaign and a way to showcase the real heart of the city. With the campaign launch, the team created and deployed a stakeholder toolkit to engage and empower local politicians, economic development, and tourism industry leaders to amplify and participate in Unofficial Museums. The free toolkit granted everyone access to imagery, social assets, background information, and window clings that participating local businesses and Unofficial Museums could display proudly.

Opening 76 museums in one day was no small feat. To convey the true scale of it, the team staged multiple ribbon cuttings that took place over the course of the launch. They had big and small businesses cut red ribbons outside of their establishments to officially open their Unofficial Museum and were able to turn local business owners into Ottawa ambassadors, generate local pride, and pique interest in the campaign.

This campaign provided the opportunity to not only showcase the tried and trusted cultural stakeholders, like the national museums, but to also elevate the small businesses and pop shops onto the same national level. The team were able to build on Ottawa existing cultural brand narrative, while finding a way to bring all the other amazing aspects of the city along with it.

Ottawa Tourism granted special museum status to more than 76 festivals, restaurants, concert venues, attractions, and cultural hidden gems at the initial launch of the campaign (as of July 2023, there were more than 150 Unofficial Museums and counting!).

During the campaign period, the implement a combination of media strategies to reach the target audiences. They utilise Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising and digital videos on platforms like ConnectedTV and YouTube to generate awareness about the campaign and destination. For the consideration phase, they ran ads on radio, in print media such as the Globe & Mail, and multiple digital platforms.

For additional touchpoints, the team invited influencers to visit Ottawa and create customised itineraries/Unofficial Museum guides that were tailored to their niche (for example, an active outdoor itinerary for the adventurer, a refreshing break for the cultural traveller, etc.). Furthermore, they published sponsored articles to elevate the reach of the campaign.

One main challenge they encountered was the brand platform. When they initially launched the campaign, the world was just coming out of the pandemic. The team needed a platform that would align with brand narrative, and they landed on ‘Here to inspire’. However, there was a growing disconnect with the platform and messaging – Unofficial Museums was about more than just inspiring people, it was about reconnecting with the city after so much time spent away. It was about reclaiming the city’s narrative as a cultural hub, or the City of Museums.

Therefore, halfway through the campaign the team rebranded the platform to “Rediscover the City of Museums” which felt truer to the story of the city they wanted to tell.

The campaign launched in Summer 2022 and was re-imaged for Fall 22, Winter 23, and Spring 23. Each phase of the campaign built on existing brand recognition and was highly successful, generating over 114M impressions in DOOH. Over 190M digital impressions garnered over 1.4M clicks and over 1M sessions. Through optimisations and cost reductions, the team obtained nearly 3 times more clicks than originally planned.

Qualitatively, the team heard from local businesses who – some for the first time – were being reached out to by national media outlets for comment and interviews on their participation in the campaign.

A new dessert shop, First Bite, because the Unofficial Museum of Croffle (croissant + waffle) and the owners became the faces of the campaign. The project grew from 76 Unofficial Museums at launch to over 150 once the campaign started to catch on in the local community. Businesses were reaching out to the team so frequently to become involved that they created a submission form to keep on top of them all!

Explore over 350 finalists’ and winners’ case studies from the last five years of the City Nation Place Awards on the Place Brand Portfolio – each one has earned industry-wide recognition and contains nuggets of inspiration for building your place brand, engaging your citizens, attracting tourism, talent, or investment. If you’re looking for ideas or to track the approaches of other places around the world, the Portfolio provides the perfect tool.

Learn more here!