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DoorDash Takes PRIDE

With Reimagined

Courageous Conversations

Award-winning campaign highlights commitment to advocate for small businesses, and to build brand affinity through values driven campaigns.

The Opportunity

For Pride month, ruckus digital and DoorDash reimagined Courageous Conversation cards, a concept created in 2020 enabling connections between Canadians. The cards were designed to spark meaningful conversations over a meal.

There are 25 Courageous Conversation cards that explore key Pride themes: acceptance, individuality, community, and empowerment. The questions are introspective and help players learn more about themselves and others. For example, one Acceptance card reads “How have other people’s perceptions of you changed the way you view yourself?”

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A survey developed in 2020, gauged Canadian’s awareness and use of DoorDash. The survey measured brand awareness and comfort levels discussing difficult conversations, particularly around 2SLGBTQ+. These insights helped us develop the Courageous Conversations campaign, and ensured it was an emotionally driven program rooted in research, and a strategy to create value driven conversations when Canadians were starving for connection. 

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DoorDash focused on being a vocal ally through what they know best, food. Our research found that for young children, "table talk" may be the main source of exposure to family conversation and the expression of thoughts, ideas and emotions, meaning it is an important time to share information. 

What We Did

To enter the market, DoorDash needed to be bold and differentiate from the competition. While Pride was in the midst of shifting all events to accommodate a global pandemic, DoorDash leaned into these important moments to provide prompts to consumers who were hungry for deeper dialogue with friends and family. 

ruckus digital designed a deck of 25 Courageous Conversation cards in partnership with six members and allies of the LGBTQ2IA+ community. These cards were then put to the test in a virtual session. Attendees included: Canada’s Drag Race participants Priyanka and Kiki; Raia Carey, Manager, Diversity, Inclusion and Culture, Sick Kids; Sarah Blackwood, Singer, Walk off the Earth; EIC of Bay Street Bull, Lance Chung; and Influencer Mina Gerges. 

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Creating Influencer Engagement
It was crucial for this campaign to highlight members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community with unique stories and representation in three priority markets. Our 33 influencer partners were given a deck of cards to develop creative content that sparked conversation, as well as contesting opportunities to share them with their followers. 

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To build additional engagement, DoorDash partnered with Drag Race Canada in their second season, creating a mini-challenge in episode two. This integration included a video produced by Bell Media demonstrating the Courageous Conversation cards in use by all of their new Queens, social amplification through the Crave and Queens social channels, and a challenge to create a look that represents their neighbourhood. The winner, Océane Aqua-Black,  took home a $1,000 DoorDash gift card, and awarded GRIS Quebec, her charity of choice, with $5,000. 

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To distribute the conversation cards, DoorDash partnered with Fresh Restaurants across Toronto, promoting the initiative through social and provided customers with a deck of cards free with their orders. In all other markets, the cards were distributed digitally via a microsite for easy download.

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The campaign also included a partnership with the dating app Grindr to offer conversation prompts using the Courageous Conversation cards during Pride month in their inboxes, users could click on the DoorDash pop-up to receive a question prompt to create deeper connection.

 

Internal Impact 

Before distributing the Conversation Cards, PRIDE@DoorDash and BLACK@DoorDash, Employee Relations Groups that help protect and advocate for LGBTQ2IA+ and Black employees were consulted to ensure topics and questions were relevant and impactful. 
 

The Impact

The goal was to create impactful and provocative content through partnerships to increase engagement, brand awareness, and brand affinity. This included merchant partners, Drag Race Canada and Grindr Canada to demonstrate the use of the cards in real time.

The Results

Brand Goals
and Results:​​

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  • 20.1 million influencer impressions through 33 influencers across Canada
     

  • 12 influencers created 52 pieces of unique content
     

  • The Courageous Conversations campaign achieved an engagement rate of 2.3%
     

  • Donations of $20,000 to queer safe spaces in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver achieved 

Drag Race Canada Results:

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  • 1.58 million impressions through paid social media
     

  • 3,278 click through
     

  • 2.3 million ad impressions

Grinder
App Results:

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  • 146K users received the prompt
     

  • 13.8K users opened the prompt
     

  • 14% avg. open rate

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