THE 14TH ANNUAL SHORTY AWARDS

The Shorty Awards honor the best of social media and digital. View this season's finalists!

Industry

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Auto See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Beauty See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Business to Business See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Consumer Brand See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Education See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Entertainment See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Financial Services See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Fitness, Health, & Wellness
<br>See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Food & Beverage
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Strategy & Engagement

See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Brand Partnership See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Call to Action See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Community Management See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Creative Use of Technology See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> CTV/OTT See previous winners and honorees for Insights and Trends here.</a> <a href=https://shortyawards.com/9th-impact/"https://shortyawards.com/category/16th/data-visualization">See previous winners and honorees for Data Visualization here.</a>"> Data & Insights See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Earned Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Event & Experiential See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Gamification See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Humor See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Innovative Media Buying Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>""> Integration with Traditional Media See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Internal Communications See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> LGBTQ Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Micro-Influencer Strategy See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Multicultural Community Engagement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Music & Dance See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> On a Shoestring See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Organic Promotion See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Paid & Amplification See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Physical and Digital Convergence See previous winner and honorees here.</a>"> Public Service Announcement See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Real Time Response See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> SEO & SEM See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Social Commerce See previous winners and honorees here.</a>"> Storytelling
From the 9th Annual Shorty Impact Awards

Destination Canada & Courageous Studios “This is Canada: Yukon”

Finalist in Multi-Cultural Campaign

Gold Honor in Branded Content

Entered in Documentary Short

Objectives

Destination Canada faced the challenge of making Canada stand out as a “radically open” tourist destination for all travelers, including those from diverse and LGBTQ+ backgrounds. Facing perceptions that the country is merely the frosty northern neighbor of the United States and often overshadowed by other international locales, Destination Canada wanted to put a stake in the ground by championing diverse travelers, voices, and experiences – across race, sexual orientation, and ability – to distinguish the country as a uniquely transformative, open destination.

We joined together on a mission to make Canada’s unexpected openness more widely known – and expand audiences’ understanding of the country by exploring its thriving queer, Indigenous, and multicultural communities.

As an exercise in “radical openness”, our series was designed to expand ideas about who a traveler is, what travel can be, and what radical openness means for all of us – featuring key characters from a range of multicultural backgrounds, including drag queen influencer BenDeLaCreme, Hispanic outdoor athlete Dani Reyes-Acosta, Black bakers and chefs Bryan Ford and Kia Damon, and Black adaptive athlete Wesley Hamilton. 

Strategy and Execution

In collaboration with Courageous Studios, the brand studio of Warner Bros. Discovery and CNN, six diverse travelers from underrepresented backgrounds embarked on their own Canadian adventures, offering audiences a kaleidoscopic exploration of people, places, and experiences from across racial, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ perspectives.

Each traveler’s unique perspective was reflected in a custom itinerary – as exemplified by our Yukon episode, where drag queen personality Ben DeLaCreme explored the queer and Indigenous history of the province’s underrecognized communities. Through extensive research and development, Courageous discovered a thriving queer community, art scene, and Indigenous experiences in Dawson City. These findings were an impetus to explore themes of belonging, identity, community and performance in a more substantive, subversive way than typically seen in travel content.

The films, articles, and more lived on a custom hub, which was distributed through the domestic and international CNN ecosystem.

Results

The impact was profound: travelers and audiences alike reveled in Canada’s vast open spaces, open minds, and open hearts with storytelling that elevated underrepresented communities and centered diverse characters. Brand research revealed a significant lift in motivation to visit, with 95% of viewers expressing a desire to travel to Canada. Expanded international distribution to Germany, Australia, and the UK saw our Yukon film perform particularly well for international audiences, with over 30% long-form video completion rates on Youtube.

The campaign has garnered so far:

And after exposure to our campaign content, 95% of audiences wanted to learn more about Canada and want to visit Canada.

The message is clear: Canada is radically open for all.

Media

Entrant Company / Organization Name

WBD’s Courageous Studios

Links

Entry Credits