SCOPE OF WORK
Matte PR collaborated with Toronto’s first ever international street art festival, Love Letters to the Great Lakes, to help raise awareness about the festival and position its spokespeople as experts. The festival successfully combined art and activism to advocate for issues facing the Great Lakes by transforming walls around Queen and Ossington, Queen and Spadina, and the Lower Don into beautiful murals.
STRATEGY & EXECUTION
Inspired by the story and purpose behind the project, Matte PR engaged with multiple audiences across the media landscape. We leveraged our network of contacts to initiate select strategic partnerships and shared the festival’s mandate with an extensive list of media in the art, lifestyle, environment, culture, and city-building categories. We focused on highlighting festival events, expert spokespeople, and its local and international team of artists.
RESULTS
Media Relations.
Our media relations efforts garnered over 58-million impressions, with coverage in notable outlets, including NOW Magazine, CBC Radio-Canada, Toronto Star, and Metro News to name a few. Through public relations efforts, Matte PR contributed to ‘Love Letters to the Great Lakes’ overall project goal: to generate awareness and advocate for change through art for the Great Lakes.
Strategic Partnerships.
Matte PR connected Love Letters to the Great Lakes with Amsterdam Brewery, one of Toronto’s oldest crafts breweries. Through this introduction, Amsterdam became the Beer Sponsor for the festival, and Title Sponsor for their Bike Ride and Closing Party. Matte PR researched potential environmental partners for Love Letters to the Great Lakes. Our work planted the seed for the festival’s partnership with Lake Ontario Waterkeeper.
Government relations.
As a result of efforts, The Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, showed a keen interest in the festival and met with festival organizers to tour the artwork.
Social Content Creation.
We worked with the Love Letters team to find a unique way to communicate issues facing the Great Lakes, while being current (pun intended), original, and fun. Our idea: dating profiles to personalize the Great Lakes; this gave them a voice, and re-enforced the ‘love letter’ theme in a cute – yet informative – way.
