Impact of a Wish: WestJet & Make-A-Wish Canada
Many people know about Make-A-Wish and its mission to grant wishes to sick children. But far fewer people understand the impact receiving these wishes has on the children who make them. Make-a-Wish Canada and WestJet, along with creative content agency studio m, set out to help people better understand why wishes are a necessity to children battling a life threatening medical condition—as well as to their families.
The resulting video showed the parents of former Make-A-Wish recipients telling the stories of how their child’s wish made a difference in their lives with a special surprise twist at the end. As a result of the authentic and layered storytelling in the video, viewers come to understand that a wish is a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have for families at a time when they are giving everything they have to fight a life-threatening medical condition.
This video inspired Canadians to better understand Make-A-Wish’s mission, but it also highlighted the unique partnership between WestJet and the charity. They used the video to highlight key messages, grow brand loyalty and create lasting relationships with current and prospective followers.
The video garnered 4.2 million total views on Facebook and YouTube—1.2 million on Facebook and 302,000 in the first 24 hours. It got 3,200 mentions on Twitter, and the WestJet blog post had 4,918 visits in the first 48 hours. The makeawish.ca received 1.2 million page views in 2016, double that of 2015. By the end of the third quarter in 2016, Make-A-Wish’s year-to-date impressions had increased by 17% over the same time last year. The project will continue into 2017, as Make-A-Wish Canada leverages the video’s vignettes to create a new wish story channel called “My Life Now.”