Uncover Prosperity MB: Building Public Trust in Manitoba’s Mining Future

The Challenge (Project Goals):  In July of 2023, a key component of the Provincial government’s Critical Minerals Strategy was to work with the Mining Association of Manitoba to create a contemporary image for mining and increase Manitobans’ support for expanding exploration. 6P Marketing was asked to help.

The challenge to 6P Marketing was to develop a public trust positioning strategy and campaign that highlighted how a growing mining industry personally benefits individual citizens and our entire province. The project scope also required
6P to design, build, and manage an ongoing public perception tracking system so Leadership could objectively understand how the public’s awareness of the benefits of mineral exploration is changing over time.

Our Solution (Research, Positioning, Creative and Media)

Research Approach: With the need to first benchmark Manitobans’ level of awareness and belief in the potential benefits of mining, along with gaining an understanding of citizens’ greatest concerns and statements that increased their confidence in the sector, 6P designed a multi-input research approach. Beginning with a messaging analysis of global mining organizations (and global governments), 6P also conducted in-depth research interviews with Manitoba industry experts, facilitated key stakeholder planning sessions, and developed a provincial quantitative study (representative of all regions: urban, rural, North).

Key insights coming out of the benchmarking research saw 89% of Manitobans identifying themselves as “not informed” about the mining industry and 42% believing Manitoba does not have a large resource of valuable metals and minerals. Despite this, 52% of the population believes that growing the industry could be “good for Manitoba.” With this in mind, 6P recommended that all efforts focus on the “moveable middle” (and not focus on the small portion of detractors).

Positioning

The overarching messaging and Public Trust Positioning recommended by 6P had three key components:

a.) Profile of the target audience – demographic and psychographic

b.) Public Trust Attributes: top three ideas we want the public to associate with mining in order to gain their trust and support

c.) Personality: tone and manner in which we should communicate to be effective in building this trust.

Positioning for such a controversial topic required adherence to key Public Trust principals, including: letting the public know that ‘we’ (the industry) share and respect their values, informing and educating them with some positive truths (good news) about the topic, and building audience confidence that they could form and express optimism about the subject. Further challenges included making them interested in this topic and demonstrating the relevance of mining in their everyday life.

6P’s research identified the mining sector benefits of most value to Manitobans included: creation of high quality and high paying jobs, generating funding for vital services (like healthcare, social programs, education), and a valuable contributor to driving Manitobans transition towards a green economy. With these top benefits in mind, 6P developed the following positioning strategy to guide Public Trust messaging for the next several years.

The next positioning challenge was to determine who should be the ‘author’ or ‘speaker’ of the contemporary mining message. Given it was a joint message from both the mining sector and the Province, 6P recommended the creation of an ‘initiative-specific’ entity and website by the name of “Uncover Prosperity MB”. Both sponsors of the project were identified in all communications but the initiative was promoted as Uncover Prosperity MB with the descriptor statement, “Manitoba’s
Critical Minerals and Metals”.

Creative and Media

With the positioning strategy finalized, 6P’s creative team faced the challenge of making the topic of mining intriguing and relatable. The creative team accomplished this by expressing each critical mineral/metal, in human form. An influencer-themed concept with each mineral/metal represented by an actual person, both a custom image and video. Creative delivered a bright and impactful colour palette with contemporary examples of how minerals are essential to our way of life.

In terms of media and getting the message in front of our target audience(s), a multi-platform campaign employed out-of-home placements like transit ultratails, billboards and superboards. At the same time, online marketing and advertising engaged the audience via placements in the Google ad network, social platforms (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok), native advertising, streaming platforms like YouTube and Spotify, and online forums like Quora and Reddit.

Every call to action led to the website, showcasing each critical metal/mineral personality and a sampling of how that mineral or metal is enjoyed in our everyday lives. Deeper dives into website content dispelled mining myths, answered frequently asked questions, provided blog posts, and delivered dedicated pages on economic impact and sustainability.

Our Results

Both project partners (Province of Manitoba and Mining Association of Manitoba) were impressed and fully satisfied with the research, Public Trust positioning, quality/impact of the creative, media investments, and overall campaign outcomes –
as a combination of online and traditional mediums/platforms, created over 131 Million impressions.

52 Million online impressions were generated across 13 digital platforms. A commitment to invest all funds as effectively as possible were demonstrated by the online leg of the campaign delivering a $0.87/cost-per-click (CPC) metric as compared to an industry benchmark of $4.66/CPC for Google Ads. Online campaign ads were seen between 8 and 20 times per
platform, resulting in 192,000 ad clicks and over 124,000 visits to the campaign website.The remaining 79 million impressions were generated by traditional mediums such as transit, print ads, advertorials, radio, and billboards