Building trust with data

Desjardins Group is North America’s largest financial services cooperative, with more than $470 billion in total assets and a full suite of personal and business banking, wealth management, life and health insurance, and property and casualty insurance services. In 2024, Desjardins returned $557 million to members and communities.

While Desjardins Group is a household name in Quebec, it has historically had lower awareness across the rest of Canada. To elevate its profile as a financial services thought leader beyond Quebec, Desjardins expanded its economist team to provide regular, high-value reporting and commentary on macroeconomic trends.

Our challenge was to ensure this expertise would resonate with Canadians nationally, connect with real everyday financial concerns, and strengthen the Desjardins brand as a trusted source of economic insight.

Macroeconomics and personal finance are deeply interconnected. Canadians trying to better understand their own financial decisions benefit from seeing the broader economic context behind inflation, housing, climate impacts, youth employment, and affordability.

In an increasingly fragmented media landscape, there is strong demand for thoughtful, data-driven economic analysis. Relevant real-world insights, localized provincial data, and commentary delivered by trusted financial experts help Canadians feel more informed, more confident, and more hopeful about their financial futures.

Our strategy followed three pillars:

Through this collaboration, we expanded audience reach by blending traditional financial media such as BNN Bloomberg with emerging business media such as The Peak.

We also supported in-person events and coordinated amplification of reports focused on high-interest themes such as youth, housing affordability, and climate economics.

• Leverage Desjardins’ unique internal datasets and its newly expanded economist team focused on Ontario, Atlantic, and Western Canada (OAW)
• Translate macroeconomic trends into practical everyday financial relevance for Canadians
• Build proactive journalist relationships to expand earned media visibility and long-term coverage opportunities

By deliberately expanding earned media visibility for Desjardins’ newly created economist team focused on OAW, we achieved an initial 1,933% year-over-year increase in economist media coverage secured by ChangeMakers.

We also helped double economist share of voice outside Quebec, increasing visibility from 3% to 6% compared with the benchmark set by other Desjardins business divisions.

Since 2022, our focus has shifted toward building direct journalist relationships the economists can now independently leverage. This has contributed to increased newsletter sign-ups, regular commentary opportunities in top-tier Canadian media, and stronger joint-team operating efficiencies.

Our work has been instrumental in positioning Desjardins Group as a trusted financial services brand across the rest of Canada.

Since 2022, our focus has shifted toward building direct journalist relationships the economists can now independently leverage. This has contributed to increased newsletter sign-ups, regular commentary opportunities in top-tier Canadian media, and stronger joint-team operating efficiencies.

Our work has been instrumental in positioning Desjardins Group as a trusted financial services brand across the rest of Canada.