At Destination Toronto, we live and breathe promoting this incredible city to locals and visitors, alike. An unprecedented time calls for an unprecedented campaign. The invitation to visit comes as the tourism industry and urban destinations begin to recover after nearly two years of impact from COVID restrictions. We want to let you in on all the secrets about the campaign. Here are some burning questions and answers that give you all the gossip about our new City Friends with Benefits.
City Friends with Benefits is an invitation for travellers from each city to escape their home town and visit the other cities. The tongue-in-cheek single comes with a newly-produced video that captures the spirit, vibe and personality of each city while simultaneously being self-aware of the playful relationship between the destinations, and being stuck at home during the pandemic.
City Friends with Benefits creates a playful threesome relationship between the cities. Beyond that, this is a song that finds its way into pop culture time and time again, and with good reason. When we want an escape, this song immediately comes to mind. And we all know a thing or two about wanting to escape over the past 18 months.
The song was recorded in both English and French with a Canadian crew and Canadian artists. City Friends with Benefits is a true collaborative effort between the three Destination Marketing Organizations and our agency partners. And Pirate Toronto produced the new single and the music video for our viewing pleasure, was directed by Peter Huang. The single also features an array of Canadian talent that could sing, act and authentically speak to loving the city they were representing in the video.
In many ways, they were our performing ambassadors. A unique campaign needs to be marketed uniquely. City Friends with Benefits marketing efforts include media channels such as Instagram, Facebook, digital and out-of-home advertising, but it also includes Spotify, TikTok, radio and YouTube - forming a unique go-to-market strategy for a tourism campaign, relying on music industry marketing best practices for a track and music video launch.
