A successful repositioning campaign, WEBTOON × BLS — Canva × No Office Romance! branded story advertisement, repositioning Canva from a "design tool" to an "office tool"
Canva is a global visual communication platform that enables anyone to create designs quickly and easily. Even without professional design skills, Canva provides an intuitive environment for creating a wide range of outputs — including presentations, documents, and videos. More recently, Canva has been strengthening its AI features and collaboration tools, further expanding its positioning as an office tool.
From March to April, Canva carried out a WEBTOON-led branding campaign in the Korean market. Beyond simply increasing brand awareness, the campaign's core objective was to position Canva as an effective "office tool" for team collaboration. Another key goal was to verify, through a BLS (Brand Lift Study), how branded story advertising on WEBTOON could influence actual changes in brand perception.
Case at a Glance
Objective
Reposition Canva as an office tool through a WEBTOON branded story and validate changes in brand perception
Strategy
Epilogue-style branded story for No Office Romance! + video asset adaptation + BLS-integrated design
Differentiator
Naturally communicate the brand's USP through WEBTOON IP-based creatives, with an integrated campaign structure that boosts survey response rates through Cookie Oven rewards
Strategy 1. Relatable episodes that resonate with office workers
At the center of this campaign was a creative collaboration with No Office Romance! Through an epilogue-style branded story ad built around office-themed episodes, the campaign delivered messages such as "How top performers stay ahead at work" and "Canva, the secret to leaving the office early" through realistic workplace stories. Rather than relying on rigid feature explanations, the campaign naturally showcased Canva's convenience and practicality in relatable office episodes.
Key campaign message
"Canva, the secret to leaving the office early"
Strategy 2. A Branding Package deeply embedded in the user journey
The branded narrative extended beyond the title, No Office Romance!, establishing a consistent creative experience across the entire user journey — from the moment the WEBTOON app was launched to the video interfaces where users engaged with the content. The brand was embedded at every touchpoint of the user's journey, leaning into gradual brand learning rather than one-off impressions.
Strategy 3. Sophisticated BLS design
This campaign also leveraged a sophisticated Brand Lift Study (BLS). It used assets from the branding package as ad banners and implemented a Cookie Oven Offerwall that issued rewards to users upon survey completion, which drove response rates. Users were grouped into ad viewers and non-viewers to quantitatively measure shifts in brand perception, allowing us to validate campaign effectiveness through data-backed insights.
Key Results
Usage intent lift
+26%
Exposed vs. non-exposed
Positive sentiment rate
96%
Among ad-exposed users
Users exposed to the ad showed a 26% higher intent to use the brand than the non-exposed group. Over 65% of the exposed group expressed future intent to use the service, the highest among all surveyed segments.
The shift in brand perception was also quite notable. The exposed audience primarily recognized Canva as an "AI tool" and "office productivity tool," while the non-exposed audience held on to the notion that it is a "design tool." This demonstrated that the campaign effectively repositioned the brand as intended.
User responses were also encouraging. The subjective response rate among exposed users was 10x higher than among non-exposed users, with 96% of feedback positive, compared to 75% in the non-exposed group. Respondents commented that the engaging WEBTOON art style, the service's convenience, and the overall design, quality, and feature functionality were highly appealing.
Memorable elements for ad viewers
Seamless integration with the WEBTOON narrative · No Office Romance! collaboration · Simultaneous edit functionality · AI system · Saves time · Design aesthetic · Streamlined workflow · Useful PPT tool
An interesting finding
Although the campaign did not explicitly mention "AI features," given the emphasis on collaboration and convenience, WEBTOON readers naturally perceived Canva as an "AI tool" — an unexpected finding for Canva.
Insights
Reflect the platform and user characteristics in the ad creative
The epilogue-style branded story, tailored to WEBTOON's medium and user characteristics, made the ad feel like a 'natural content experience' rather than an 'interruption' — resulting in a 96% positive response rate among ad viewers.
Reposition the brand through strategic messaging
By framing the narrative around collaboration and convenience rather than explicitly mentioning AI features, users naturally came to perceive Canva as an 'AI tool · office tool.' This demonstrates that the positioning shift from 'design tool' to 'office tool' was actually achieved.
Validate data via an integrated BLS design
The BLS design integrated with Cookie Oven rewards created a structure that enabled the campaign's effectiveness to be quantitatively verified.
When a brand is woven into a WEBTOON narrative, it can shift not just awareness but brand perception itself.
Thank you.