PHD Canada will celebrate Big Hug Charity Day on Friday, February 18 with a big human-ribbon at Yonge and Dundas streets and “Change for a change” events around the city.

Big Hug Charity Day is a global initiative among PHD offices in Toronto, Montreal, across Europe, Asia and South America. This year marks the 21^st anniversary of PHD Worldwide and as a thank you, the company is celebrating by giving back to the community in all the regions they serve.

PHD has partnered with the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies to bring light to the fact that children and youth in care want to have lasting family connections. This event will take place on the Friday of the Family Day long weekend.

PHD Canada’s Toronto office staff and volunteers from local Children’s Aid Societies will be forming a human-ribbon at Yonge and Dundas Streets on February 18 at 8:00 a.m.

PHD staff will also be collecting spare change–“Change for a Change”–at Yonge and Dundas streets and Union Station from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.

Through these events, PHD will raise awareness of the need for permanent stable families for children and youth in care. PHD has been working in partnership with the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies as their charitable partner since 2007. Over the years, PHD has supported the Association’s efforts to educate the public about the many ways they can get involved in protecting and caring for children and youth in need or at risk.

Since 1912, OACAS has represented Children’s Aid Societies in Ontario and provided service in the areas of government relations, communications, information management, education and training to advocate for the protection and well-being of children. OACAS is the voice of child welfare in Ontario.

In today’s Media in Canada …

Scotiabank streams RSP event live online

The broadcast was the final leg of a cross-country tour in January in which broadcast personality Valerie Pringle and a panel of guests hosted educational events on RSPs in five cities across Canada.

Yesterday at noon, the session was broadcast live on Facebook, Moneyville.ca, FinancialPost.com and the Say Media network. PHD Canada handled the media for the extended digital strategy and Mighty did the campaign creative.

Tuesday’s live discussion starred Pringle, Zoomer Media’s Moses Znaimer, academic Richard Florida and Scotia MacLeod’s Bev Moir. Viewers were able to interact via live chat or by posting on Scotiabank’s wall.

Although the target viewership was modestly pegged at around 500 people, due to the specificity of the video content, over 5,500 people tuned it at its peak, vastly exceeding the goal, Daryl Stansfield, digital account director, PHD Canada, tells MiC. The high number of viewers opens up a lot of opportunity for the FI’s digital strategy, he says.

“Going through the [viewer] comments was interesting,” he says. “People were excited about the content and wanted it to become a regular series. I think a lot of things are going to spiral out of this.”

The stream was also carried live in big-box ad units on Moneyville.ca (a site for which Scotiabank is a presenting sponsor), the Financial Post’s Personal Finance channel and via the Say Media network. Banner display ads augmented the execution and both units carried promotional creative for the event a week to five days ahead of it. Additional pre-promotion included a reach block on Facebook targeted at Canadians over 18 years old.

It was the first time many of the publishers carrying the feed had done such a thing, Stansfield says, and as such required a lot of coordination between all the parties involved. It also marked the first digital-only event for Scotiabank and its first live stream on Facebook.

The RSP edition of “Let the saving begin” will run throughout February and following that, a third leg will begin focusing on lending and mortgages.