WSIB ONTARIO – DAY OF MOURNING

CAMPAIGN PERIOD– April 2 – April 28

THE CHALLENGE

Every year over 200 Ontarians die due to workplace injury or illness. That’s more people killed because of work than are killed by someone with a gun every year in Canada[1]. For this reason, the WSIB of Ontario works to bring awareness to the Day of Mourning, a nationally recognized day to remember those who've been killed or injured at work, and to inspire a renewed dedication to workplace safety.

Most workplace safety messaging focuses on the incident, the moment when the unimaginable happens. Someone forgets to wear their safety gear, or they take their eye off the job for a second, that moment when everything goes wrong and an employee is killed. The problem is that most of us think of it as just that, unimaginable and therefore ignorable. We know we should be safe but we often don't react to danger unless it is clearly in our face. 

When we spoke with the families of those who had lost their lives at work they all spoke of the shock of their loved ones leaving for a normal day at work, never to return. We realized we needed to not focus on the incident but on the aftermath. Showing employees that it’s not only their lives, but the lives of those they would leave behind that would be devastated.  Whether we love or hate what we do for a living, at the end of the day we all want to get home. But for those who one day don’t make that commute home, all their loved ones wish for, is that they had made it home.

The one-line key insight:

Making it home makes all the difference to us and especially our loved ones.

The one-line idea:

The Last Commute - Remembering what happened to those who didn’t make it home, so it doesn’t happen again.

The Plan:

The last commute told the stories of those who went to work but who never came home. 

An empty TTC streetcar was wrapped in black to symbolize the hundreds who don't make the commute home every year. The streetcar was the centrepiece of an awareness film, running on pre-roll throughout the workday, in which the true stories of employees killed on the job were told by their loved ones. Those stories were also used in radio, digital, and social content, targeting employees while they commuted home. The In Memoriam Streetcar was also used to create media awareness just prior to the Day of Mourning, running empty through the Toronto rush-hour, initially puzzling commuters as they couldn't enter the streetcar. At key stops, WSIB representatives were on hand to educate and inform commuters on why they couldn't board the streetcar and the importance of The Day of Mourning.

To deliver on the renewed dedication to workplace safety the Day of Mourning marks each year, we created a custom Typeface of The Fallen, using the stories and likeness of those who had fallen on the job, allowing the WSIB to communicate with employees and their loved ones in a fresh way. The typeface was used in print, web and ooh for greater impact and storytelling. Each execution featured one letter from the typeface and a story of a deceased employee, creating a powerful, timely, and relevant reminder about the importance of workplace safety.

THE RESULTS

Our goal for this campaign was to create awareness of the day and renewed dedication to workplace safety. We received regional and national coverage in traditional and digital media such as Breakfast Television, BlogTO, CBC, CTV News, resulting in 10.6 million earned media impressions. We also saw positive social sentiment towards the WSIB and the Day Of Mourning message and the campaign was a top trending topic on twitter leading up to the day.

The switch in focus from the moment in time of the accident to the never-ending void left behind for the loved ones opens up a new conversation about workplace safety. While the statistic of 200 deaths each year is sobering, the losses endured by the thousands of family and friends is heart-rendering.