Canva’s first global ad campaign asks ‘what will you design today?’
Canva wants the world to know that it aspires to be “the ubiquitous tool for the workplace”. In an effort to emphasize its versatility and celebrate the diversity of its community, the brand has launched a new campaign that highlights the creative success stories of its clients, large and small.
Canva wants to be known as the pre-eminent design tool for the modern workplace. To inspire businesses of all sizes, it’s launching its first-ever global campaign. The new effort posits the question ’What will you design today?’ while celebrating the achievements of up-and-coming business owners as well as notable Canva clients Zoom, the UNHCR and Fast Company.
The global push aims to inspire creativity and position Canva as a comprehensive, one-stop-shop for bringing a brand’s design goals to life. “Some say design is beyond most people’s reach,” the narrator of the TV spot says. “We say it’s already in your hands. So, what will you design today?”
Canva also celebrates its community in the campaign by highlighting the stories of some of its clients, including Melati Wijsen, a 21-year-old Indonesian woman who founded Bye Bye Plastic Bags on her home island of Bali when she was 12 years old. Wijsen’s efforts eventually led to the prohibition of plastic bags and single-use plastic items in Bali. Today, Bye Bye Plastic Bags is comprised of 60 teams working around the world. Wijsen has also co-founded another organization called Youthtopia. “We believe every single person can create change, but not every young person knows where to start,” Wijsen said in a statement. “As a young changemaker, I always had ideas and visions and I think Canva was one of the tools that allowed me to take those visions and turn them into something I could share with people.”
“Community has always really been at the center of Canva,” says Zach Kitschke, Canva’s chief marketing officer. “We’re very fortunate to have such a passionate and engaged community and it’s really nice to be able to see that we’re having a really positive impact in the world with Canva hopefully helping in some way for them to achieve their goals.”
Canva also leans slightly into the prominent role it has come to play since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. “We’ve really seen an explosion over the last two years of the need for everyone to communicate visually and usage of Canva has really accelerated in the workplace,” says Kitschke. The campaign also tells the story of Alexis Bowen and Craig Zapatka, both of whom lost their jobs during the pandemic and decided to found Elsewhere, a sustainability-oriented travel booking platform. The Elsewhere team used Canva to build a social media strategy rich with video and imagery and, having grown rapidly, the company was recently acquired by Lonely Planet.
By highlighting a diversity of clients, each with their own unique origin stories, goals and marketing strategies, Canva is also positioning itself as a uniquely versatile and user-friendly platform. This comes across clearly in the campaign’s 30-second TV spot, which shows us a number of different creatives and professionals using Canva for an equally wide variety of purposes. “Canva’s mission is really to empower everyone around the world to design, from individuals and small business owners right through to Fortune 500s,” says Kitschke. “The breadth of the folks that have been included in the campaign really speak to the breadth of people using Canva around the world to visually communicate and achieve their goals.”
The new campaign launches nation-wide in the US today and will launch in Canada, the UK and Australia in early April.