Don’t be a traitor

CIRA

Most Canadians default to a .COM for their businesses. To get Canadian entrepreneurs to choose .CA over .COM, we made the alternative feel downright un-patriotic, with a little help from the “Eh Team”.

Brand Strategy
Brand Identity
Campaign Strategy
Creative Platform
Full Funnel Brand Campaign
Integrated Production

A member of CIRA’s ’Eh Team points at the viewer beside “Don’t be a .COMMY” and “Choose .CA” campaign messaging.

Highest .CA advertising awareness in CIRA history: #1
Campaign recall vs. GoDaddy: +23%
.CA registrations in December 2019: +5.3%

Challenge

Despite their national pride, many Canadian small-business owners default to .COM when registering a domain. CIRA needed to disrupt that behaviour and give entrepreneurs a compelling reason to choose .CA instead.

Insight

Canadians proudly embrace everything from hockey and poutine to double-doubles, but that pride wasn’t always reflected in their choice of domain.

By tapping into that national pride and making .COM feel like a betrayal, we gave Canadians a reason to think twice before defaulting to .COM.

Solution

Enter the “Eh Team”: a squad of overzealous Canadian enforcers who tracked down business owners caught choosing .COM and reminded them to do the right thing: choose .CA.

Don’t Be a Traitor launched on TV and in cinemas before the “Eh Team” followed audiences across online video, targeted social, digital advertising and OOH.

The warning was simple: choose .CA, choose Canada. Or else.