The Royal Canadian Mint celebrates the anniversaries of three of Canada’s historic moments with new coins featured in their new brand platform, 'A History of Making Change', which highlights coin-worthy moments in history that have changed the world. This campaign platform uses innovative and engaging storytelling to motivate the population to learn more about Canadian history, focusing on two key moments in Canadian history.
For each coin launch, the Royal Mint has recreated these historical moments and has brought them to life using a mix of photography, visual FX and cinemagraph techniques, to get audiences excited and intrigued about these important events. The stories then continued into other activations where the stories were retold in new ways leveraging modern platforms and contexts.
First, Bluenose, Canada’s peerless maritime icon, set sail in Nova Scotia 100 years ago. Led by Captain Angus Walters, it won the International Fishermen’s Race in October 1921 and every race thereafter for 17 years. In 1937, its image was engraved in Canada’s 10 cent coin. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canada’s most famous ship, the Royal Canadian Mint is releasing three commemorative ten-cent coins, one of which also happens to be the Mint’s first ever painted dime.
Canadians will be invited to immerse themselves in the story of the historic Bluenose, through a campaign that will feature a retelling of the ship’s historic race via a Twitter and Instagram activation. Over the course of the 2 weeks, “Captain Angus”, “Team Bluenose” and other Twitter handles involved in the race will be sharing banter from the journey on Twitter as they compete to win the cup.
“We wanted Canadians to relive the excitement of the race as though it were happening now - retelling the timeless story of Bluenose in the most timely manner,” says Badr El Fekkak, VP of strategy at McCann Montreal.
Additionally, the Mint issued a new $2 circulation coin celebrating the fact that, 100 years ago, four researchers achieved a Canadian medical breakthrough that changed the world forever. In 1921, the collaboration of Frederick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip and John Macleod led to the isolation and purification of insulin and offered a life-saving treatment to people whose lives would previously have been cut short by diabetes.
'A History of Making Change' is a nod to the fact that the Royal Canadian Mint literally makes change, but it’s also everyday Canadians that have a history of making change to better our world.