Championing Positive Change: A Showcase of Impactful Work
Welcome to a section dedicated to profiling my work in championing positive change during my 20 plus years working in the public sector for the BC Government. From groundbreaking health initiatives to innovative public awareness campaigns, my projects are driven by a commitment to social good. Each example highlights strategic and creative approaches to inspire and inform communities, fostering healthier and more informed societies. Read on to explore the impactful projects and initiatives I've been privileged to lead.
Stop Overdose
Between 2017 and 2020 I led the strategy for StopOverdoseBC.ca, a multi-faceted public awareness and anti-stigma campaign developed by the BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions in response to BC’s opioid overdose public health emergency.
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The campaign drew insights from my work as provincial overdose response committee co-chair for the public awareness task group, and chair of a time-limited task group struck to identify reasons people use drugs alone. The evidence-informed approach included the support of those with lived and living experience. There was no clear predecessor to look to for inspiration or strategy, as the field was flooded with examples from the war on drugs, and my role was to create a new approach.
Leading a team of internal category specialists and external communications contractors, I helped conceive a strong harm reduction message that would challenge stereotypes of who was at risk of overdose and drive the message home through a creative media plan. In delivering a message that “people who use drugs are real people” and friends, neighbours and loved ones, the “Faces” campaign reached 93.2 percent of British Columbians through TV, radio, print, out of home and digital.
My team developed and operated a site dedicated to the overall theme of helping people “get involved, get informed and get help” by sharing life-saving actions and supports and grew the outreach of that content across hundreds of partner agencies. My previous experience working with the Vancouver Canucks and BC Lions led me to their support again. Canucks alum Kirk McLean and former BC Lions quarterback Travis Lulay among others were signed on to act as ambassadors and share a strong message with men to stop toxic masculinity and break the silence that plays into overdose. Partnerships like these helped reinforce messages and broaden reach, making it easier for people to talk about overdose, respond and seek help.
Additionally, I led advisories and focus groups directing the work of creative agencies and media specialists to develop targeted English and in-language campaign materials in Canadian and South Asian communities, where stigma plays a major role in keeping people from seeking help to overcome addiction.
The Faces campaign showed significant results in people believing that anyone was at risk of overdose, and in increasing their comfort in talking about the issue and seeking help, and was adopted by multiple jurisdictions across Canada.
Healthy Families BC
While working for the BC Ministry of Health I was the strategic lead behind the creation of Healthy Families BC – a prevention-focused brand designed to be the leading, trusted source for people in BC to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
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Working with health promotion policymakers, practitioners, advocacy groups and researchers across BC, I led the way in creating tools to drive awareness and engagement in the many family-friendly education and information programs and services available to people to drive behaviour changes across multiple settings and involving a “whole of society” approach. I worked to develop an in-house team of behaviour change and brand awareness experts, delivering for the health ministry a guide to social marketing and a train-the-trainer approach to sharing that expertise and a rigorous shared brand strategy among health authorities and partner agencies. This approach aimed to make it easier for people to find content online, reducing the “brand clutter” that often stops good policy solutions and services from reaching those who need them.
Under my leadership Healthy Families BC launched multiple awareness and behaviour change communications campaigns including mass media campaigns, and a digital assets strategy with the development of the HealthyFamiliesBC.ca website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube channels offering content across healthy eating, pregnancy and parenting, healthy aging, mental wellbeing, activity and lifestyle, and more.
While in this role, I also pioneered the first ever health loyalty program for any government worldwide, partnering with Safeway and AirMiles, which led to the later development of Carrot Rewards. In addition to this innovative corporate partnership I also forged a wide range of connections with not-for-profit organizations, including: researchers and students with both UBC and Emily Carr University of Art and Design; passionate federal colleagues who work as health marketers; communicators and innovators at the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada; fellow health promotion experts during the multi-year partnership with ParticipACTION; and with the First Nation Health Authority, working alongside elders, old ones, youth and knowledge-keepers to create tools and share traditional knowledge to help support better health among Indigenous people and communities throughout BC.
In 2021 the HealthyFamilies BC content was merged with HealthLinkBC (an effort that began during my tenure) to streamline the content for the benefit of British Columbians.
Alcohol Sense
In my role as Director of Engagement with the BC Ministry of Health, I was the key marketing lead with the original concept team in the development of the brand Alcohol Sense.
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Following my work on the public awareness campaign to curb binge drinking, and the research that went along with it, it was clear that to alcohol awareness needed to begin earlier, at a minimum in the early teens. Kids start looking to other influencers early, but in the early teens, parents remain a significant influence. Taking this cue, I worked with the substance use leads and researchers to develop a new education campaign and brand “Alcohol Sense” designed to encourage a culture of moderation among adults, which parents could then model along with supports designed to make it easier for them to talk about alcohol risks to their kids.
I worked with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research in the development of content and ran focus groups to gain insights from parents on their experience. My role included building the campaign site with a suite of expert-informed, yet friendly information that encouraged wide engagement. I led a mix of content development through in-house and agency creative, playing with multiple formats including “streeter” style testimonial videos sharing real life experiences, gamification of blood alcohol levels and easy to follow guides on how to have open conversations with kids about drinking. In addition I was the health marketing lead on the unique partnership struck with industry and experts to develop campaign materials to share in every licensed establishment across British Columbia as part of a mandatory display program under the Liquor Control and Licensing Act, which continues to this day.
BingeDrinking.ca
One of the recommendations from the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup Riot Review was for the BC Government to "step up public education programs" aimed at men aged 18-24, about the dangers of underage and binge drinking, and of public intoxication.
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I was asked to lead this work in my role as director within the Ministry of Health’s population and public health division. The timelines were short and it required working with multiple agencies from the original task group as well as BC Government interests. The partners included the Vancouver Police, the City of Vancouver, the Fraser and Vancouver health authorities and Translink, which along with the City, was offering up transit shelter space. With media pre-determined and a short time to be in market, we needed high impact, memorable creative. I brought in a highly creative agency experienced in behaviour change marketing and also worked to convince the steering committee that we needed a campaign website to drive peope to for more information. This I saw as a very important signal towards creating what was needed — a longer term public education program to establish a culture of moderation.
ThinkHealth BC
I was brought in as an engagement lead with the BC Ministry of Health during the development stage of ThinkHealth BC, a branded program designed to support the then deputy minister’s innovation and change agenda.
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My role was to help develop strategy of the public launch, to promote it through health conferences and in meetings with health authority leads and to manage the public presence in its online format. The innovation and change agenda showcased through ThinkHealth was designed to address the rising costs of healthcare through a complete system-wide transformation.
As the team lead for the branded website and YouTube and Twitter accounts, it was my job to ensure that British Columbians – the public and healthcare providers alike – were invited to engage and offer views through the online discussion forum. To help people to grasp the enormity of BC’s health care system and what was envisioned for this future transformation, the site showcased a suite of videos that used animation and stakeholder testimonials breaking the system into bite-sized segments across emergency and acute care, community care, prevention, seniors care and the strategies being employed to create change including LEAN methodology. The forum drew thousands of comments via a fully moderated discussion board to help inform policymakers on the needs of service providers, advocates and the public. In addition I worked as the lead of a cross-functional team to continue building site improvements, developing compelling content, managing issues, and helping champion digital engagement in government as at ThinkHealth BC was one of its first success stories.
Act Now BC
I was part of the ActNow BC team as a key marketing leader from the beginning and carried that role across several BC government portfolios. My last role was as marketing director in the ActNow BC branch of the ministry of healthy living and sport.
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This award-winning major Premier-led healthy lifestyle initiative was recognized by the WHO (world health organization) for its promising practice of being a “whole of society” effort as it set the goal of being the healthiest jurisdiction to ever host an Olympic and Paralympic Games ahead of its 2010 Winter Olympics. ActNow BC has been studied and showcased across the globe as a leading effort in shaping its full suite of policies, programs and partnerships through the lens of the social determinants of health. The brand initiative led with the tag line “every move is a good move,” adopting the approach that making small changes every day would lead to improved population health outcomes, reducing the ballooning costs of healthcare and making room for other valuable government services.
The campaigns to “make the healthy choice the easy choice” ran from 2005 to 2012, and in that time I worked as a marketing, communications and brand manager across all the activities including helping design and promote the one-year provincewide activation tour, work with creative and media agencies and subject matter experts to design, test and execute mass-marketing to increase physical activity and healthy eating and design and run major partnerships with brand ambassadors including Olympic athletes, First Nation youth, seniors, celebrity chefs, media personalities and health experts. My role in leading strategic partner relations and sponsorships led to my working with procurement, legal, risk and privacy experts in government to develop a comprehensive sponsorship framework that was used to guide all sponsored activities across government. My use of incentives and behavioural insights was extensive throughout the ActNow BC program, proving the case for “nudge” long before it became common practice. An example of this was experimented with the use of incentives, enlisting sponsored partners to create government’s first venture into contests to incite interest and promote pledges to healthier lifestyles, overcoming the hurdles with legal and privacy along the way.
You Gotta Be Here
In 2009, I was a key lead with the BC Government in the development of a massive international campaign inviting the world to come visit in 2010, as it opened the doors to the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
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This was an intensive period of strategy and execution across what seemed like an infinite number of hurdles – it truly takes an Olympian effort to launch a worthy Olympic campaign. From working as a lead to source the talent – the integrated campaign featured the best of BC across TV and digital broadcast as told by major BC celebrities including Michael J. Fox, Kim Cattrall, Ryan Reynolds and Sarah McLachlan, to working with local interests to find or create compelling digital and out-of-home images and the messaging to showcase each of BC’s six tourism regions, to negotiating with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to get approval on every asset created, not to mention the delight of continuing to work with them after being the brand manager for the original host province pre-Games content. But it was so exciting when the final You Gotta Be Here spot went viral.
I was thrilled to help work with the media team and creatives to help amplify the campaign through partnerships with the Olympic networks NBC and CTV, be part of the original team working on the strategy for experiential events in downtown Vancouver and the promotions for participation throughout the torch relay. It was my job to manage the design and execution of what was the nation’s largest ever out of home media campaign with content that boasted the Olympic experience, tourism opportunities across all BC regions and a multi-language welcome at borders and airport gateways.
The Games were considered a huge success with 3.5 billion viewers worldwide. Our online ads generated 250 million impressions through various channels and the You Gotta Be Here ads ran twice every half hour at Times Square in NYC on the superscreen at 42nd street.