The challenge:

During the critical holiday sales period, minority-owned businesses often face significant challenges in gaining visibility. Dominated by big-box retailers, who outspend small businesses 5000:1, the holiday season sees these larger companies taking over prime advertising spaces across TV, online platforms, and billboards. This extensive coverage leaves little room for smaller, minority-owned shops to get noticed. As these underrepresented business owners struggle to break through the advertising clutter, they frequently remain absent from consumers' holiday shopping plans.

Compounded by economic forecasts that predict consumers might spend less, these minority-owned businesses are at risk of missing out on vital sales opportunities. This lack of visibility and inclusion during a peak sales period places them at a stark disadvantage, threatening their sustainability and growth.

BMO is dedicated to promoting financial fairness and enhancing support for underrepresented business owners. The campaign needed to effectively increase awareness and boost sales for these businesses, to level the playing field and help ensure more equitable economic opportunities.

The one-line key insight:

Holiday carols have become so ubiquitous that, much like many minority-owned businesses, they blend into the background, unnoticed amidst the festive clamor.

Holiday carols are deeply woven into the fabric of festive traditions, heard everywhere from bustling shopping malls to cozy family gatherings. This omnipresence makes them an ideal vehicle for subtly transforming familiar experiences into opportunities for advocacy and support. By reimagining these carols to highlight minority-owned businesses, we could leverage their widespread appeal to draw attention to those often left on the margins of the holiday shopping frenzy. This approach harnesses the power of tradition to illuminate and support the underrepresented, integrating their presence into the collective holiday consciousness in a meaningful way.

The one-line idea:

Embed 'Business Carols' into media where Christmas tunes are played, ensuring widespread exposure for minority-owned businesses.

The campaign's strategy creatively hacked holiday traditions, transforming them into a powerful tool for promoting underrepresented businesses. By tapping into the universal appeal of holiday carols—a staple of the festive season—the campaign ingeniously used these familiar tunes to spotlight businesses that typically remain in the background. This approach not only honored the deep-rooted tradition of carols in holiday celebrations but also redefined their purpose, turning a ubiquitous seasonal fixture into a vehicle for meaningful and impactful promotion. Bringing this concept to life, 'Business Carols' were created; a reimagined, innovative twist on classic carols in the public domain. The lyrics were carefully crafted to  incorporate the essence of underrepresented businesses into the holiday spirit.

This initiative focused on rewriting and recording popular holiday carols to promote small businesses, leveraging the universal appeal of Christmas music. The BMO campaign utilized Spotify as its primary platform, integrating 'Business Carols' into playlists to increase listens, and influencing Spotify's algorithm by playing these carols in BMO branches, thereby gaining enough popularity to be featured in big-box retailers' stores. This strategic approach was bolstered by radio and YouTube pre-roll ads that blended with holiday music, seamlessly weaving the promotion of small businesses into the public's festive media consumption. Additionally,  the carols were performed live at the Eaton Centre, North America's busiest mall, intercepting shoppers with our new lyrics and introducing them to small businesses they couldn't find in the mall itself.

The plan:

The BMO "Business Carols" campaign ingeniously tackled the challenge of amplifying small businesses during the competitive Christmas season traditionally dominated by big-box retailers with:

●      Reimagining Carols: We developed a series of "Business Carols," using classic carol tunes in the public domain with new lyrics that highlighted and promoted small businesses.

●      Spotify Integration: To ensure our Business Carols got the exposure they needed, we influenced Spotify’s algorithm by playing our songs—24 hours a day, seven days a week—in 540 BMO branches across Canada, even when the branches were closed. This pushed our re-imagined Carols higher in the Spotify algorithm, gaining enough popularity to be featured in playlists that were played continuously in big-box retailers' stores. Little were they aware that by playing holiday carols, these retailers were actively promoting our small business partners.

●      Multi-Platform Advertising: We purchased radio and YouTube pre-roll ads styled as typical holiday content to subtly incorporate the carols, further integrating the campaign into everyday consumer media intake.

●      Live Performances: We organized live carol performances at major shopping venues like Canada’s busiest mall, the Eaton Centre, directly engaging shoppers with the innovative lyrics and directing attention to the featured small businesses.

●      Digital and Physical Linkage: We added Shazam functionality to our carols to turn them from a passive listening experience to an active shopping experience by allowing listeners to Shazam the song lyrics and then click directly from the lyrics to our small business retailers.

What happened/results:

This approach not only leveled the advertising playing field for small businesses, including those owned by women, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC entrepreneurs, but also transformed the traditional holiday shopping experience by subtly directing consumer spending towards these often-overlooked entities. By leveraging the ubiquity of holiday carols, the campaign enhanced visibility for these businesses while showcasing BMO's commitment to diversity and inclusivity, demonstrating the power of targeted marketing in making a meaningful difference.

Key results include:

Creating visibility for minority owned businesses

●      Impressions - 69,422,683

●      Video views - 4,124,036

●      Eaton Centre Activation - Drew approximately 125,000 engagements.

●      Minutes streamed: 9,494,250 or over 158,000 hours

Driving Web Traffic for participating businesses

●      166,800 visits to the online campaign catalog which is 27x higher than 2023.

●      Drove more than 10,000 visits to each participating business during the critical holiday period

And in the words of participating business owners:

“It plays a huge part in sales generation and marketing that otherwise small businesses like mine may not be able to pay for. It was a beautiful way to create something that lasts. My business carol was great to use in marketing materials. I was able to see more sales via my e-commerce and it helped in getting two major wholesale clients.” - Soft & Butter, Ontario, Canada, participating business

“This greatly benefited my business’s credibility and helped my business become more visible!” - Niffy Signature, Quebec, Canada, participating business

***Note to judges: Due to talent cycles, BMO’s Business Carols are no longer available on Spotify. ***