BMO Makes a Film Joke Reality in Downtown Toronto

In the film Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, two musicians accidentally travel back to 2008 and find themselves in an alternate timeline where one of them, Jay McCarrol, has become the face of BMO on a giant digital billboard in Toronto's Sankofa Square. It is a throwaway joke in a cult comedy. BMO and TBWA\Canada decided to make it real.

From May 27 to June 3, BMO glitched its digital boards in Sankofa Square, Toronto, temporarily replacing its current spokesperson, Lamorne Morris, with McCarrol, as if an alternate timeline were bleeding into the present. Wild postings went up around key Toronto locations featured in the film, supported by influencer content and social amplification.

The creative logic is unusually clean for a financial brand. BMO did not approach the filmmakers with a brief. The joke was already in the movie. The brand's job was simply to recognize it and make it literal, which is a different kind of creative instinct than most financial services campaigns require. 

Full story: Roastbrief - Glossy

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