City of Hamilton
Spend It Here
A 2019 holiday shop-local campaign for the City of Hamilton's Economic Development Office, made with Hamilton's 13 Business Improvement Areas. An original character, Peter Pizzazz, ate, shopped, and found entertainment across the city, told through static social ads, a series of Instagram videos, and a 15-second TV spot.
Bronze IEDC Excellence Awards, 2020. 2019 Holiday campaign. 13 Hamilton BIAs. 15s TV spot, plus social + IG video
Overview.
Spend It Here was a 2019 holiday shop-local campaign for the City of Hamilton's Economic Development Office, produced in partnership with Hamilton's 13 Business Improvement Areas. The goal was seasonal and direct: send people downtown and into local shops through the busiest retail stretch of the year.
The campaign was carried by an original character, Peter Pizzazz, a puppet brought to life alongside human performers. Peter ate, shopped, and found entertainment across the 13 BIAs, giving a city-wide initiative a single warm through-line instead of a generic holiday push. The work ran as static social image ads, a series of Instagram videos, and a 15-second TV commercial. (It also lived on a campaign landing page at investinhamilton.ca/spendithere, which may no longer be online.)
The campaign went on to win Bronze for Internet & Digital Media at the 2020 IEDC Excellence in Economic Development Awards, in the population group of more than 500,000.
Selected outputs.
Output index
- -Original character creation: Peter Pizzazz, puppet plus human performance.
- -On-location shoots across Hamilton's 13 BIAs.
- -A set of static social image ads.
- -A series of Instagram videos.
- -A 15-second TV commercial cut for broadcast.
Artifacts.
Hamilton Rising produced the campaign for the City of Hamilton and distributed it through its own organically-built channels. The campaign videos lived on Hamilton Rising's Instagram; the figures alongside reflect the organic audience that distribution was built on.
- Instagram followers
- 7,000+
- Facebook followers
- 20,000+
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