BMCsupport

How do you say thank you, when thank you isn’t enough?

You show how you feel. And that’s exactly what Canadians are doing, every evening, to applaud health care workers. 

From balconies and porches, front steps and driveways, people are using anything we can – pots, pans, voices, and hands – to show our gratitude for the dedicated people who are taking care of all of us. It’s heartwarming to see and hear. And these powerful images and sounds are the inspiration for new ads from the Hospital Employees’ Union that thank British Columbians for staying home to keep everyone safe.

HEU represents more than 50,000 members providing patient care and keeping BC’s hospitals and long-term care homes safe and clean. 

NOW couldn’t be more proud to work with HEU to bring this campaign to life. We pulled out all the stops to deliver ads that wouldn’t just be compelling and beautiful – but also fully respect all public health directives.  

Filming at six locations across the province, the team of videographers at Gab Films captured the uplifting visuals and inspiring sounds of everyday British Columbians showing their support for health care workers. We also filmed a shift change outside St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, where health care workers can hear the sounds of support at 7 pm each evening. 

Throughout the filming and production process, we ensured that physical distancing was always maintained to keep everyone safe. The 15 and 30 second ads are now airing across BC. 

On behalf of everyone at The NOW Group, thank you to all health care workers, on the frontlines and behind the scenes, for taking good care of all of us.

To celebrate the joy of reading on this World Book Day, we asked around NOW’s virtual-office to see what we’re reading right now. And here it is: Our team’s first-ever recommendations for good reads.

P.S. Next time you order a book, please support your local independent booksellers. We can’t imagine our neighbourhoods without them – and we need to make sure they survive this difficult period.

And a big shout-out to public library workers across Canada for making incredible e-books and electronic resources available during this period of isolation. Thank you, librarians, for making the world of books accessible to more people than ever.

The winning tagline for the Covid crisis seems to be “We’re in it together.”

It might be new as a rallying cry, but it’s always been true. We just didn’t talk about it before.

This pandemic is not the ‘great equalizer,’ as Madonna declared from her $5,000, petal-filled bathtub. Those who were already struggling are being hit the hardest. And nothing short of an earth-crushing asteroid can equalize a world with this much inequality (although smart social policies, fair corporate taxes, strong public services, compassionate immigration laws, and transformative climate policy would be a start).

But this pandemic is the ‘great exposer.’ It’s showing us just how close to the edge many middle-class and working class Canadians have been pushed. And it’s proving that a better future is possible.

For many Canadians, concerns about eviction, access to food banks, and income assistance had never touched them directly. And a ‘precarious job’ was thought to mean some combination of low pay, no security, and no benefits. 

This is a wake-up call: it could be any of us. And one catastrophic event can turn almost all jobs into precarious ones. 

None of this precarity was widely-recognized as a problem until it became a problem for ‘everyone’.

In a flash, people who felt they had secure paycheques, suddenly didn’t. My niece with a union job in Toronto’s booming film and TV industry. My friend, the massage therapist and owner of a wildly popular specialized clinic, that takes bookings two months in advance. Another friend who works in a dental office (Who could imagine a time without a demand for dentists?). It was a stretch to think that any of these jobs could vanish, one at a time. Let alone losing all of them overnight.

Yet, the system has been cracking – and those cracks didn’t happen overnight. For decades, we’ve seen governments cutting public services, squeezing the most vulnerable, and trying to convince all of us that those cuts wouldn’t hurt us a bit. And year after year, the evidence of families’ growing financial hardship has been mounting.

Last fall, personal bankruptcies were up 10% over the previous year. Headlines in early March shouted that Canadians own $3 trillion in personal debt. With an average household debt of $72,950, we’re carrying $1.76 in debt for every dollar of disposable income. And average debt per consumer increased 2.7 per cent in 2019, compared to a year earlier.

Here’s the thing: people who live paycheque to paycheque are in a world of pain when those paycheques end. Families drowning in debt can’t float when they can’t cover the monthly minimum. 

And now, the rug has been pulled out from under people – and there’s no floor to stand on. 

“No shit,” say the millions of Canadians whose lives keep getting harder thanks to conservative governments, like Doug Ford’s and Jason Kenney’s – governments that remain intent on cutting the public services and social supports that we need now, more than ever.

But none of this precarity was widely-recognized as a problem until it became a problem for ‘everyone’. And by ‘everyone’ I mean the stock market. And corporations who suddenly don’t have consumers. And governments facing a collapse in revenues.

Overcrowded shelters have been overwhelmed, underfunded, and stretched thin for so long that many simply can’t provide the safety and security that every human being deserves.

Now that it is a problem for ‘everyone,’ we suddenly see that governments can act swiftly to help people, when they have the political will. 

Governments around the world are proving that it’s possible to provide direct financial assistance to help people who are unemployed. In mere weeks, basic income went from being a great hope for many activists and the fantasy of Andrew Yang’s long-shot candidacy… to a cheque that Donald Trump is signing. (Of course, truly universal basic income will take much, much more than a one-time cheque in the midst of a global crisis). 

At the same time, municipal governments are proving that it is possible to take real action to provide emergency housing for people experiencing homelessness – and proving, by doing so, that so much more can and should be done to improve long-term access to housing for everyone. Because overcrowded shelters aren’t just a health hazard today; they’ve been overwhelmed, underfunded, and stretched thin for so long that many simply can’t provide the safety and security that every human being deserves.

The truth that this crisis exposes is that we can do better. 

We don’t have to settle for a politics of austerity and precarity. We don’t have to live in a country that pushes working families to the brink. We don’t have to ignore the needs of vulnerable people in our communities, with the hope that it “never happens to us.”

We can do better. We can build a future where safe and affordable housing is a right and a reality. Where working families have secure incomes, benefits, and pensions. And where the health and safety of everyone is protected, on and off the job. 

The crucial test will be what happens after. Having exposed the precarity that people face and proven that governments can do so much more to help, what happens when this is over? What happens to that political will, when certain politicians try to take us back to ‘normal’? 

Pandemic or no pandemic: we’re in this together. We always have been. And this time, let’s make sure we don’t forget it.

December 13th, 2019 by The NOW Team

You remember in the federal election, when Jagmeet Singh had that amazing viral video on TikTok?

A lot of people had three reactions:

One, good for him!
Two, what the heck is a TikTok?
And three, do I really have to learn another frigging app?

We’re all busy people. And there’s so much to keep track of. New tools constantly coming. And the tools we already use? They keep changing.

For those of us in communications and advertising, the pace is even faster.

But whether you’re an ubergeek or a confirmed Luddite, or somewhere in between, progressive organizers and communicators have to keep learning how to make the most of these ever-changing capabilities.

Our movements, unions, and non-profits have powerful and well-resourced adversaries. And we need to get better at taking them on.

It’s up to us to design smart campaigns that marry ever-growing digital potential with the power of offline action. And to do that, we have to pay attention to three big lessons that today’s most successful campaigns are getting right.

Tip #1: Message matters.

No matter what medium you’re in – TikTok, Instagram, or Morse code – one thing’s still true.

Message. Matters.

The right message can succeed even on a shoestring. The wrong message will fail no matter how much money you spend – or what whiz-bang tech you throw at it.

It needs to connect with people emotionally, contrast with the alternative, and offer hope for a solution. And that helps put your campaign on the winning track.

Tip #2: Whenever possible, our digital tools should lead people to action.

One of the most seductive things about the digital realm is how measurable it is. You can track shares, and likes, and views, and follows. You can plot them against demographic information. You can make charts. Charts!

But there’s a mistake in thinking that the fact we can count it… means that it counts. If it’s just the same people liking and sharing over and over again, we haven’t reached outside of our social media bubble. We haven’t persuaded anybody. And we haven’t built a community.

But the click, the like, the share… they can be useful if they connect to action that has an impact. That is, if we translate online action to offline action.

There are three key ingredients to the most powerful connections to action:

The first is urgency. People need to understand why it’s important to act right now. The second ingredient is meaning. Our audience needs to see a connection between the action we’re asking for, and the outcome they want. And the third ingredient is impact. Show your audience how this action is already changing things. And show that they, too, can be a part of the change.

Tip #3: Understand what tool does what job best.

You can get away without knowing the ins and outs of every social app. But you do need to know what each of the channels available to us is good for, when to use it, and where it falls short.

That applies to traditional tools, like TV and radio, as well as the latest and greatest. (More on what-tool-to-use-when in a blog post coming soon!)

With every channel, though – from radio and print to Instagram and TikTok – think about the communications fundamentals. What’s your message? Who’s your audience? What’s your call to action?

Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your content and channels is the first step. Understanding how they can connect and amplify each other, though: that’s your superpower.

Together, let’s do some good!

It’s up to progressive organizers and communicators to put these tools to work for working people, not against them. We can use these tools to push back against the forces that are trying to cut public services, keep working people down, and make life harder. We can motivate and mobilize like never before.

And when we do that, we’re doing more than just building audience share. We’re building a community – and building our movement.

Heather Fraser is President and CEO of The NOW Group. This blog post is a condensed version of Heather’s speech to the Manitoba Federation of Labour.

Whether or not you made a new year’s resolution, the new year is upon us and with it comes an opportunity to look ahead. At NOW, here’s are some of the things we’re keeping an eye on.

1. Marketing gets influenced

It’s not just for fashion and health products anymore – even the federal government is experimenting with influencer marketing. By partnering with owners of popular social media accounts to have them talk about a chosen topic in their own voice, marketers are finding they can reach broader audiences, engage them for longer periods of time, and weave their story into conversations that are already under way.

2. Podcasting gets heard

They’ve been around for a while, but in the last few years attention on podcasting has exploded and we’re expecting to see more of it. If 2018 was the year you either became or knew someone who’s a podcast fanatic, 2019 might be the year you either become or know someone who starts a podcast. Some of our favourites include Pod Save America, Ear Hustle, Labournauts, Objection!, Just Work It, and NSGEU Union Matters (shout out to our client!).

We’re super excited about the potential for podcasting to tell in-depth stories about working people, to explain complicated ideas and policies, and create strong emotional connections that mobilize and move audiences.

3. The early bird gets the ad

With a federal election on the calendar this fall advertising spots are starting to fill up. Booking advertising early is going to provide significant strategic and financial benefits for anyone looking to reach voters.

4. The 2019 federal election

And speaking of a fall federal election, all the events leading up to the election – and its outcome – are ones we’ll follow closely. And, of course, we look forward to rolling up our sleeves and playing a positive role in determining its outcome!

5. The shifting border between news and advertising

Native advertising – ads whose form mirrors that of the content around it – has been with us for some time now, and the border between advertising and content continues to move and morph. As the news industry continues to re-make itself and its business model, expect the spectrum between advertising and paid content to include new entrants. On this topic, we’re reading The CANADALAND Guide To New Popular, Populist Political Media and keeping an eye on interesting news startups like Topic, The Outline, The Discourse, The Conversation, The Logic, and more.

6. Messaging platforms eat into social media; slide into your DMs

Is your work team on Slack, Skype, or Google Hangouts? Does your family have a WhatsApp group? Whether you’re exchanging short text messages and emoji with a group of 5 or 500, private group chats are operating outside of the public eye and playing a progressively bigger role in influencing what people think, what they think about, and in mobilizing people to act.

7. The continuing reign of storytelling

A lot has changed in media, but it never ceases to impress us that one thing remains the same: the value of storytelling. Regardless of what media we’re employing to put a message into the world and what context that’s happening in, it takes outstanding storytelling to tie together experiences, emotions, and facts to shape public opinion and motivate action.

8. The role of audiences in telling a story

As we all get used to a more participatory media environment, no story seems complete without an invitation to tell a story back to its teller. So tell us – what are you looking forward to in 2019? Let’s be in touch.

Written by Aylwin Lo, our new Account Manager and Creative Technology Specialist at our Toronto office.