In January 2009 Bleublancrouge was asked to create a promotional and recruitment campaign for Katimavik. We developed a variety of strategies to reach young people across the country wherever they might be, and get them to visit gokatimavik.com, which had information on Katimavik programs and a call to action to register online. Knowing that a traditional media campaign wouldn’t be convincing enough to get young people to sign up, we decided to reach our target audience using every type of social media available. Certain associations as well as former participants were already in touch with our young target audience, and they had the potential to be very effective. All they needed was the right tools. The nationwide “DÉGAGE/GET A LIFE” campaign was a huge success, partly because of its catchy slogan but also because of its effective use of every available means to reach Canadians age 17–21. Young people even became involved, helping out in a guerilla marketing campaign by putting up stickers in schools and on public transit and even posting home videos on YouTube on the campaign theme. New photos and videos were added to the gokatimavik.com blog daily, clearly demonstrating increased interest and allowing potential participants to get an idea of what the Katimavik adventure is all about.
