TURNING THE TABLE: JONATHAN LAVOIE

Jonathan Lavoie, whose background is in graphic design, started his career at BBDO Montreal, and went on to join the Sid Lee team in 2005. He has worked on projects for North Face, Adidas, Samsung, Burger King, Videotron, IGA, Loto-Quebec, Belair Direct, CN, Quebec Tourism, Kruger, SAQ, Protect Our Winters, Earthday, and many others. His work has been rewarded by Lions de Cannes, Fast Company World Changing Idea, One Show, ADC Awards, Applied Arts, Marketing Awards, IDEA, Grafika, and more. With more than 15 years of experience in advertising and communications, Jonathan is recognized in the industry for the quality of his creative and strategic power.

We most certainly recognized Jonathan’s powers when he served as a judge for the 2022 Photography and Illustration Awards. It was wonderful having him as a part of our extremely talented jury, and we are so pleased that he took some time to share one of the fruits of his talent with the project below.

What were some unique features of the campaign?
With natural disasters occurring all over the world, climate change deniers still continue to spread false information about climate change—including people in power, such as politicians and fossil fuel lobbyists. We partnered with Protect Our Winters Canada (POW), a non-profit fighting climate change, to set the record straight with Fact Avalanche. 

Burying lies in truth: In time for the 2019 Canadian elections, we launched the Fact Avalanche: an online tool designed to counter misinformation and skepticism surrounding climate change and engulf climate change deniers’ tweets in truth.

Whenever one of the influential climate change deniers we targeted tweeted an incorrect claim about climate change, Fact Avalanche subscribers were alerted via text, email or Slack prompting them to #FactBack with scientific facts from a custom fact bank built in partnership with Canadian universities and scientific climate partners at IC3 (Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change). #FactBack GIFs and stickers were also created so people could take action on social platforms outside of Twitter.

What were the success stats or indicators?
A snowballing movement: The Fact Avalanche is a testament to the passionate drive from people all around the globe fighting for climate action. Partnering with POW, we created this platform to give a voice to people striving to not only save the state of our playgrounds, but the state of our world as we know it.

This is what happened after just three weeks with no media budget:

• 25 million organic impressions
• 5K+ fact visits
• 300% Instagram follower increase
• 100 Canadian companies added the app to their Slack channels
• The project made Fast Company’s 2020 top 12 list of World Changing Ideas.

Can you give us some "peeks" behind-the-scenes?
One thing that made this project so unique, was to have direct access to POW’s Athletes and Scientists who work alongside with the organization. We had the chance to meet with all of them prior to the launch, making sure to onboard them into the process and make sure they would own the story on their personal social channel.

Why is this particular project a fave?
For me, this was the perfect balance between craft, messaging and purpose. The tonality and visual language around the Fact Avalanche Tool gave it a voice of its own. An attitude that made you want to fight for the cause. 

Can you give us your opinion on what you think made this project a success?
Being relevant to the climate change context was a big part of the success, that’s for sure. But I think that having created a tool where people can play and interact with the subject was crucial. It’s one thing to share the message, but it's even more fun when you get the feeling that you can change its course LIVE. Basically, we had a great enemy to fight against, and people wanted to join the «army» because it was fun…and because it had a purpose.

Fun Fact: A Canadian politician even removed their tweet after one of our Fact Avalanche. It felt great to see how this tool could actually have an impact and modify what deniers were saying online.

LINK TO THE CASE+VIDEO

We can’t thank Jonathan enough for being a member of our jury and for sharing this wonderful campaign. It is incredible to see creativity tackle issues so large and wide-ranging like climate change. Inspiring stuff! To see more inspiring work, head on over to Jonathan’s Behance here!