For the past three years, WestJet has been a leader in content marketing during the holiday season. To build on this equity WestJet created a 2015 holiday campaign – "WestJet's 12,000 mini miracles."

WestJet took a new approach to content marketing in hopes of creating a movement, as opposed to an individual moment. The objective of the campaign was to encourage 12,000 WestJetters across the network to perform and submit (via social channels) 12,000 mini miracles (or random acts of kindness) on December 9th over a 24 hour time period.

What's a mini miracle? It's an act of kindness, a good deed, making a difference or an impact in someone's day – without expecting anything in return.

The goal was to reignite the brand's caring culture, leverage the strong brand equity it has built up throughout the holiday season by taking ownership of one day, dominating mainstream media and all social platforms, highlighting the great work WestJetters do with the help of Blue Santa, and its iconic Blue Hats.

The brand asked that each mini miracle be documented with a photo or video and submitted using the hashtag #WestJetChristmas via email, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram into a Command Center that worked around the clock to document every single submission in our quest to 12,000.

Starting in London across to Hawaii, each mini-miracle submitted with #WestJetChristmas was tracked in real time by an internal team of WestJet volunteers at a Command Centre located in Calgary using the social tracking system Hashtagio (a real-time user-generated content publishing and marketing platform).

The campaign began with the idea of involving WestJet's entire network (101 bases in total), but it evolved into a global movement. The campaign objective was to stand out during the holiday season, and so WestJet brought a memorable and heartwarming experience to both guests and employees alike.

An internal communications plan and call to action was developed to encourage all WestJetters to participate and share the experience online with guests, stakeholders and their personal networks. All employees across the network were reached out to through an extensive communications plan in order to distribute the Blue Santa hats along with instructions on how to perform miracles.

Domestic airports were supported with a budget to activate miracles within the airports and local communities. Airport visits included sessions on how to participate. Starting on Dec 9th, all WestJet employees could wear their iconic blue Santa hats as part of their uniform for the month of December.

WestJet street teams were placed in 13 markets to contribute to the miracle count. Street teams were followed by camera crews who captured key miracle footage throughout the day on December 9th.

Press releases were distributed nationally and regionally to get local media to cover what was taking place and included a local spokesperson in each market that could speak to WestJet's efforts. The brand also released a call to action (CTA) video on December 8th (which was also leveraged internally) and external teasers which were featured in the WestJet Magazine (inflight) and JetMail (external email).

Promoted posts on Facebook, Twitter, Periscope and WestJet blog/website helped drive amplified reach. The WestJet blog provided live updates and featured stories throughout. WestJet offered media a behind the scenes look by inviting a strategic group of reporters to join Blue Santa on a chartered plane across Canada. Throughout the tour, Blue Santa performed mini miracles and provided live interviews via phone and skype to regional and local media.

The brand listened to top radio station morning shows in advance of the day to determine what was on the hosts' Christmas wish lists and surprised them with hand-delivered personalized gifts, driving awareness and buzz of the day.

The brand also engaged high profile partners such as Calgary Stampede and Toronto Blue Jays to participate and create their own consumable content using #WestJetChristmas.

On December 16th 2015, the "WestJet Christmas Miracle: 12,000 Mini Miracles" video was unveiled on WestJet's YouTube page and amplified through a strategic communications plan. In collaboration with studio m and Imprint Design, the brand transformed a timeless Christmas classic into a custom written and produced branded song.

The success of the concept was the first of its kind (for WestJet) to rely on user-generated content being submitted in 24 hours. In the end, 31,793 mini miracles were submitted, the brand received earned media from 2,359 outlets, and tracked a total earned media audience of 1,825,452,158, $2,260,930 in earned media value, 126.5 million Twitter impressions, 10.15 million Facebook impressions (8.7 million paid / 1.4 million organic), 5.5 million video views, 220,000 social engagements (Facebook), 21,504 total shares (Facebook and YouTube). There was also 96% positive sentiment online, 700,000-plus page views of Christmas content on WestJet blog, with the page contributing to a total of $898,000 in revenue, and a total of 3,456 instagram photos were uploaded with the #WestJetChristmas hashtag.