Telefilm Canada has teamed up with digital marketing agency Rebl House to produce Canada’s Got Game, a set of athletics-themed video spots that are breaking social media records for the organization.

Telefilm began rolling out 50-second teasers for the campaign earlier this month in the lead-up to the Pan Am Games in Toronto, with an edited spot combining the teasers posted to social media and YouTube last week.

Both the teasers and full edit feature Canadian actors, including Zoie Palmer, Anna Hopkins and Vinay Virmani, facing down athletes such as Donovan Bailey, Taylor Pischke and Alexandre Despatie in humour-driven athletics contests, such as a swimming race aided by inflatable devices.

A teaser spot featuring Donovan Bailey, Vinay Virmani and Paula Brancati has been viewed more than 8,000 times on YouTube since its release about two weeks ago, and was retweeted more than 1,300 times from Telefilm’s official Twitter account. The longer spot will screen at Just For Laughs ahead of Jason Reitman’s live reading of The Big Lebowski at the Just For Laughs festival, and will also be shown at the various film festivals across Canada.

“With this campaign, we really went with the public-facing profile, in particular being able to do cross-promotion with well-known sports figures and established Canadian talent,” Francesca Accinelli, director, national promotion and communications with Telefilm Canada, told Playback Daily.

The campaign has broken records for engagement and views for Telefilm, an indication that the organization’s new strategy of targeting millennials through original content on social media is working, Accinelli said. Much of Telefilm’s promotional content in the past has been more along the lines of stand-ups or PSAs but this time, the marketing team decided to seek the help of digital marketing agency Rebl House to create the irreverent spots that could help them hit a new demo.

“We are starting to work with more and more agencies. We are starting to expand how we want to connect with the Canadian public, and this type of viral video, it had to be different from what we created before,” Accinelli said.”What we created before, I loved. I think they were beautiful pieces, but when you’re trying to move into that millennial space, you really need something that is going to grab them and grab them quickly.”

Partnering with well-known athletes has allowed Telefilm to expand its reach with this latest campaign, and the organization wants to continue to partner with other figures for the cross-promotional perks, such as comedians or chefs. While Accinelli noted such content has to feel authentic in order to resonate with fans, the success of the campaign proves the org is headed in the right direction.

“It was clear from the pickup from the fans that this is the kind of content they like to see about the people they love,” Accinelli said.