BMO’s purpose is to boldly grow the good in business and in life, with a key driver being support for women-owned businesses.

The Bank of Montreal, known as BMO is the 10th largest bank in North America, with branches across Canada and the Midwest and western US. BMO’s belief in equity and financial fairness has helped build a strong history of championing women’s advancement – from their long-standing support of women-led businesses in Canada through a $3 billion commitment, to achieving over 40% female leadership within the bank itself. In an industry that’s traditionally run by men, for men, BMO stands out as a bank that’s invested in women’s success.

In 2021, the hardest-hit industries were predominantly owned by women, with 56% of women-owned businesses seeing a decline in revenue. BMO wanted to help build back women-owned businesses that disproportionately suffered during the pandemic.

As part of its longstanding commitment to helping Canada’s women business owners make real financial progress, BMO launched a holiday themed initiative called “Wrap the Good.”

BMO turned wrapping paper, a ubiquitous and largely cosmetic product, into a new media channel that inspired consumers to shop at women-owned businesses, businesses that were in desperate need of a financial boost, and support small business recovery. Our custom designed recyclable wrapping paper featured a QR code that linked out to a brand-new Pinterest account that housed a holiday gift guide giving them direct access to purchase products online.

BMO partnered with women-owned businesses across the country who were recently featured in BMO’s Celebrating Women Grant Program. The custom-designed recyclable wrapping paper featured gift photography with each photo acting as an ad unit for the business details of the program and a QR code that drove to a curated gift guide on Pinterest.

Many businesses struggled during the pandemic, but women-owned businesses were affected the most.

The impact of the pandemic was felt disproportionately more for women small business owners. Lack of access to capital, unpaid caretaking labour, and domestic labour are barriers unique to female entrepreneurs that were exacerbated by COVID. Research from Statistics Canada showed that women-owned businesses were laying off a larger proportion of their workforce and had a 30% decline in revenue. Self-employed women in industries that rebounded quickly, such as the construction industry, are still recovering much slower than their male counterparts. While industries that are normally women-dominant, such as healthcare and social assistance, are seeing male-owned businesses recovering significantly faster.

BMO wanted to take an often-overlooked element of holiday gift-giving, wrapping paper, and change it from something purely cosmetic to a new media channel that addresses this imbalance and helps speed up the recovery of women-owned businesses.

"Wrap the Good" launched on Small Business Day (Nov. 27) with custom-designed, recyclable wrapping paper featuring gift photography, program details, and a QR code that drove to a curated gift guide on Pinterest.

The holiday guide included hundreds of shoppable products and gift cards across clothing, home, beauty, wellness, and food and beverage. To build awareness and drive to the guide, BMO used a mix of owned, earned, and paid channels, including Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. BMO printed and distributed the wrapping paper to small businesses and BMO branches nationwide. Branches were wrapped in our custom-designed wrapping paper, which increased street-level exposure and allowed passersby to scan and shop.

Participating women-owned businesses provided additional distribution, and a campaign hashtag encouraged shoppers to share their suggestions and photos. An installation at Stackt market - one of Toronto’s largest outdoor markets - increased awareness and created more opportunities for consumer engagement.

BMO built an engaging, purpose-driven campaign that far exceeded its goals.

By transforming wrapping paper from a holiday accessory into a new media channel, BMO built a campaign that drove engagement, increased brand reach and recall, and created hundreds of thousands of dollars in media exposure for women-owned businesses in need. Key results include:

- BMO distributed over 10,000 sq. ft. of our Wrap the Good wrapping paper.

- BMO provided $360,000 of free media exposure to businesses in need through this new media channel. This equates to a four-week, 200 billboard OOH campaign or 24,000 national full-page newspaper ads.

- Due to high demand, we doubled our initial projections and printed and distributed 6,000 sheets of wrapping paper.

- Brand Reach & Recall:

- Impressions: 7,764,031

- Including 3.2 million impressions on Pinterest, reaching 929,000 Pinterest users over a two-week campaign.

- Reach: 3,019,952

- Completed Video Views: 98,698