By Strategy Staff
11 December 2025
Well, 2025 is coming to a close. During this season of reflection, strategy and Media in Canada’s staff took time to look back at the campaigns from the past year that were inspiring, funnY, emotional and hit all the right notes. While there were many to choose from, these are the works we feel are worthy of a little extra recognition before we welcome 2026.
Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism
Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism has been an industry darling since its award-winning campaign “The Edge” was launched in 2006. Over the last two decades, the cinematic works produced alongside agency partner Target have captured the spirit of the place while promoting experiential tourism before it was a buzzword.
In its May 2025 campaign, “Hello Humpback,” NL Tourism and Target take experiential tourism to a new level (or depth).
With the help of Al, the campaign capitalized on the fact that 43% of visitors to the province take part in whale watching. As part of the campaign, tourists were encouraged to upload photos of every whale they spotted to a website that then produces a personalized biography of the animal’s life using existing marine-sighting data.
The website uses automated image recognition to identify whales based on markings unique to each animal that are then cross referenced with international research organization Happywhale’s database of more than 70,000 humpbacks. Target’s custom-trained generative Al then takes all of the known information about a given whale to create its life story.
Travellers can sign up to get future updates on “their” whale with the knowledge that they are contributing to continuing conservation efforts. Every new photo adds to a dataset used by marine biologists to monitor whale-population trends and migratory patterns.
This campaign accomplishes a bunch of different things at once. It promotes an appreciation of nature. It helps people engage with their phones in a more meaningful way. It contributes to conservation. It makes decent use of Al. It was launched during a period when Canadians were especially hungry for Canadian experiences. And most importantly of all – it’s just one more thing that makes Newfoundland and Labrador awesome.
– Jonathan Russell, digital editor, strategy, Media in Canada
