How do you make the Dutch Canon relevant for 17- and 18-year-olds? Commissioned by the Ministry of Education, Culture & Science and the Open Air Museum, we translated 50 Canon windows into relatable life lessons. With one central idea: Wake Up! Learn from the past, and stand up for your future.

We combined qualitative youth research with creative development. Together with Young Works, we explored what really matters to students. These insights shaped a social-first campaign with role models Isadee, Bokoesam and Latifah, built around three themes: perfectionism, racism and feminism. The campaign launched with a Beyoncé-worthy video, deepened through three short docs, and kept momentum with always-on Instagram content.

Each short doc linked a Canon figure to a life lesson: Aletta Jacobs (women can do anything), Vincent van Gogh (being yourself is perfect enough), Anton de Kom (learn and respect).

History became personal, practical, and shareable. With illustrator Hedy Tjin, we brought the message to the streets through murals across the country.

The media strategy focused on maximum reach and repeated contact moments for 17- and 18-year-olds, with Instagram and YouTube as the main stages. Smart sequential targeting built narrative depth across touchpoints.

We achieved a unique reach of over 450,000 and over 16 million views. On YouTube, the view rate for the kick-off and docs was 89%, with an average engagement of 8% and peaks of up to 25%. The street-art content achieved 28% engagement.

Case video