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Equiterre
Équiterre entrusted us with designing and rolling out “Together, We Move Forward,” an awareness and mobilization campaign promoting public transit in eight cities across Quebec. The goal: to turn awareness into concrete action through a contest mechanism designed to drive engagement.
The Project
Équiterre wanted to change Quebecers’ perception of public transit by positioning it as a smart and beneficial choice rather than a constraint. The campaign was designed to reach a broad audience across eight priority cities, without resorting to moralizing or anti-car rhetoric. A contest mechanism (with a year of public transit as the prize) was used as a conversion driver to turn interest into qualified sign-ups. The mandate covered strategy, content production, and media activation over a five-week period.
Our Role
- Creative Strategy and Campaign Positioning
- Video Production and Audio Adaptations
- Creation of advertising visuals
- Multiplatform digital advertising campaigns (Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Google Ads, and programmatic advertising)
The Results
+
Contest Entries
M+
Impressions and Engagements
Strategy
The strategy was based on a two-phase approach rather than a single direct conversion campaign. The campaign first built awareness around public transit as a desirable choice, before introducing conversion campaigns, without ever phasing out the awareness component, which remained active in parallel to support brand recognition throughout the five weeks. Each message followed the Stress → Solution → Benefit → Action framework, deliberately avoiding any stigmatization of drivers in favor of an inclusive message rooted in concrete benefits rather than opposition. This phased approach helped build a qualified audience base before calling for action.
Creation
The campaign was rolled out across three complementary components. The video component brought to life authentic portraits (a driver, a student, a nurse, among others) and promotional clips centered around the contest, with short versions tailored to each platform. The static component utilized carousel and display formats, designed for retargeting and conversion. The audio component was distributed programmatically with geotargeting during commuting hours, reinforcing brand recall where drivers encounter the problem on a daily basis.
Optimizations
During the campaign, budgets were continuously reallocated based on each channel’s actual performance: TikTok proved to be just as effective as Meta at generating leads, a finding that directly guided the media mix for the remainder of the campaign. Custom audiences were integrated to accelerate the platforms’ algorithmic learning, reducing the time needed to achieve stable performance. The entry form was also adjusted along the way to reduce friction and improve the conversion rate. It was this combination—rapid budget adjustments, optimized audiences, and a streamlined form—that enabled the campaign to exceed its initial target of 8,000 entries.