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How Manulife tapped the trend of people creating images with their fitness routes

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By Awards Analyst, writer

December 9, 2022 | 4 min read

Manulife won at The Drum Awards for Content 2022 in the Best Use of Mobile Content for its Routes for Heart campaign. Here, we find out more about what went into this lifesaving campaign.

Manulife's Routes for Heart Campaign Ad

Manulife's Routes for Heart Campaign Ad

As part of insurance company Manulife’s commitment to helping Canadians live healthier lives, they needed to find a creative way to support the Heart & Stroke Foundation to fund life-saving research, as well as promote individual heart health. Their Routes for Heart was a digital-first activation designed to encourage participants to create heart-shaped routes on their fitness track apps.

The brief

In a bid to promote their annual Ride for Heart fundraising efforts into the virtual world, Manulife needed to create an engaging and lifesaving campaign to reach Canadians as they used their fitness apps. After thorough research into runners’ behaviors, they realized a trend was happening – people were using their fitness app routes to draw random shapes, such as roses or even pigs. Manulife wanted to find a way to incorporate this trend into an active campaign.

The idea

Assimilating the idea of heart health into the actual mechanics of the campaign, Manulife created a promotion that would encourage runners, bicyclists, and walkers to track their fitness routes in the shape of a heart. This allowed participants to actively engage in the campaign while also becoming more aware of heart health. They were encouraged to share their routes, as well as the campaign, to their social media channels.

Manulife's Routes for Heart campaign

The results

The results for Routes for Heart far exceeded their expectations and no doubt led many Canadians to lead healthier lives. Fitness participants ranged from marathon runners to families with small children. Individual results were posted on their personal social media channels and quickly spread throughout the country. Within 24 hours after the campaign activation, 8,000 heart-shaped routes were made with organic reach spreading to over 97 million people.

This campaign was a winner at The Drum Awards for Content 2022. You can Find out how you can enter now.

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