Common Ground, is a foreign exchange for Harley drivers to come here and ride in Canada, brought to life through an online documentary series.

Our idea was to challenge the perceptions and myths of riding and what it meant to be a Harley rider from any part of the world. Diversity naturally highlights differences – in opinions, interests, values – and we needed to unify our audience to succeed. We knew that no matter the age or background of the rider, riding can fuel a sense of discovery. And that the diversity of people and landscape across the nation made Canada an ideal platform for real discovery. We could bring the world to Canada – and with a Harley and an open road, we could open minds.

Every ‘Common Ground’ ride was promoted on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram via short and long-form multi-format content by the riders, Harley and Harley’s vast dealer network. This started with pre-promo videos in May leading up to the officlal launch June, 2017.

Demo, keyword and contextual targeting was used to promote Instream social videos along with canvasing.

Instagram Story promotion and OOH Wild Postings in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton drove the social campaign’s awareness.

Common Ground and its supporting content was housed on HDCommonGround.com, while CRM initiatives nurtured leads to retarget engaged audiences.

Additional promotional and local PR initiatives were executed at Harley dealerships in select cities where the riders stopped. This included dealership ‘welcome parties’ and dealers hosted viewing parties of the film.

Our media strategy enabled an effective targeting strategy against a diverse audience. Media findings were reapplied them, in real-time, to optimize our target’s online behaviour. This yielded extremely strong results:

• Over 47MM impressions, surpassing our goal by 235%

• Over 8.7MM views, surpassing our goal by 218%

• Over 665,000 engagements

• YouTube average view duration increased from 53% to 63%

• Harley’s market share rose by 1.9% against our nearest competitor, despite the industry

being down 3.8% overall.

We quickly gathered mainstream media interest, culminating in Discovery Canada showcasing Common Ground in a one-hour primetime show in September that drew over 475,000 viewers. National and international press coverage included CBC, CTV, National Post and Edmonton Journal. Fast Company described it as “content that people actually want to watch.”

AdWeek held up Common Ground at its Arc Awards recognizing the Best Brand Storytelling of 2017.