CANVAS
STRATEGY
CONTENT
VIDEO
Empowering the Customer's Voice
Nothing speaks louder than the experience of a trusted peer. Even the best creative showcased on the world's most prominent channels doesn’t hold a candle to the impact of a close friend’s comment, “Hey, you should really check out _________.” With a highly active but very insular online community of educators, Canvas by Instructure wondered, “What would happen if the teachers who are with us everyday started telling their friends about us?” The answer to that question would become an epic user-generated content campaign that Canvas would repeat over and over again. What was the engine behind it? That’s where WB Creative comes in.
In preparation for their global conference, Canvas, the leader in online learning, hoped to engage their online community of educators to share their experiences using the platform. Canvas approached WB Creative and its proprietary user-generated content platform, StoryMedia, seeking to gather authentic, branded, user-created videos for playback at the conference, on social media, and on the Canvas website.
As WB met and brainstormed with Canvas leaders, the big idea for the campaign became clear. Canvas didn’t just want to hear how educators were using their platform. The real ask was much higher: they wanted to know how teachers were Changing the World with Canvas. Based on this guiding message, WB began developing a variety of assets meant to promote and engage Canvas educators.
Building on their StoryMedia platform, WB created multiple video templates (like short video bookends) for users to add to their own Canvas videos. Each template was unique but tied closely to the primary theme of Changing the World with Canvas.
As the heart of the campaign, WB conceived an introductory video that would play inside the Canvas online community and invite educators to participate. WB produced and directed the film inside the Canvas offices, capturing a fun, witty, internal view of the Canvas HQ and culture not often seen by the Canvas community.
Empowering customers to share their real perspectives with colleagues and peers? That’s Creative that Matters.
Do you need help creating authentic, actionable content that inspires people toward engagement and real results? Let’s talk. We would love to bring Creative that Matters to your campaign.
When the campaign finally launched, Canvas leadership were enthusiastic to see educators from across the US, UK, and Australia create and submit Canvas videos using StoryMedia. In total, across a brief two-week period, the campaign generated more than 7,000 organic views – social proof from Canvas educators speaking largely to others just like them – that have continued to drive strong results for Canvas worldwide. Since the initial campaign, Canvas has returned to WB and to StoryMedia multiple times to recreate the experience.