Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec Bets on Long-Form Storytelling
Born to Let Go is a 2019 Québec tourism campaign produced by Cossette for the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec, consisting of eight episodic short films — each running approximately three to five minutes — distributed via the QuébecOriginal YouTube channel and targeting French-speaking, United States, and Ontario audiences across Canada and beyond.
The campaign launched on March 26, 2019, as announced by Cossette, with its first episodes appearing on the QuébecOriginal YouTube channel and additional episodes becoming available by April 18, 2019. It represented a deliberate evolution from the Alliance's 2018 long-form effort and carried the same core creative philosophy: that Québec is not merely a destination to visit, but an emotional permission structure — a place that authorises modern travellers to disengage from their routines. Martin Soucy, President and Chief Executive Officer of Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec, framed this positioning precisely in Travel Courier: "Québec isn't just a destination, it's an invitation to let go and reconnect with what really matters."
In Canada, where domestic tourism competition is fierce and cross-border leisure travel to the United States remains a structural competitor, the campaign's geographic targeting was precise. The Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec operates under its QuébecOriginal brand to promote the province in priority markets that include the United States, francophone audiences, and fellow Canadians in Ontario — all three of which Born to Let Go addressed simultaneously through distinct episodic narratives. A fall 2019 expansion targeting the Mexican market was also planned by Cossette, extending the campaign's international ambition beyond its spring debut. The nine media assets archived on Clapboard.com represent a content series that treats travel marketing as television-adjacent storytelling rather than conventional advertising, earning the campaign a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100.
Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec identified a clear consumer appetite for extended content before Born to Let Go was green-lit. Sébastien Viau, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at the Alliance, stated in Travel Courier in April 2019 that the organisation had observed a strong appetite for longer content formats in its preceding year's campaign — a direct signal that shaped the decision to commit to an eight-episode structure running three to five minutes per instalment.
That preceding effort was the 2018 "Lâcher prise / Let Go" campaign, also created by Cossette for the Alliance, which featured five international influencers including Jean Imbert, a French chef; Alan Estrada, a Mexican actor and travel blogger; Kiersten Rich, a US travel blogger; Benjamin Prescott, a Canadian adventure photographer; and Jess Dales, a US content creator, as documented across cossette.com and adsoftheworld.com. Born to Let Go in 2019 inherited and expanded this influencer-anchored episodic model, reflecting data gathered from that earlier activation.
The market context made this ambition credible. According to data cited by Strategyonline Ca, Québec received approximately 35 million visitors in 2018 — roughly 26 million residents and 9 million non-resident visitors — generating C$10.4 billion in visitor spending. Tourism represented approximately 2.5 percent of Québec's economic activity and close to 10 percent of provincial employment. Visitor volume had grown at an average of roughly 3 percent annually between 2014 and 2018, while total tourist spending grew at approximately 8 percent annually and non-Québec visitor spending at approximately 10 percent annually over the same period, according to the same source. Against this growth backdrop, the Alliance's investment in premium content series rather than traditional broadcast advertising signalled a competitive awareness that platforms such as Expedia and Destination Canada were also elevating their content standards in the Canadian travel category.
Cossette constructed Born to Let Go as a content franchise, not a campaign in the conventional sense. Each of the eight episodes functions as a self-contained short film, three to five minutes in length, built around real travellers experiencing Québec in ways that dramatise the emotional concept of release — releasing schedules, digital dependency, and the self-consciousness that modern tourism often accelerates rather than dissolves.
The series was distributed through the QuébecOriginal YouTube channel, a platform choice that prioritised depth of engagement over reach metrics. By placing long-form episodes on YouTube rather than compressing the idea into thirty-second broadcast units, Cossette and the Alliance signalled a willingness to meet audiences who had already opted into travel content discovery — a meaningfully different viewer than the passive broadcast audience. The first episodes were released in spring 2019, with the full slate available by April 18, 2019, as documented by Travelcourier Ca and confirmed across adsoftheworld.com and cossette.com.
The creative lineage connecting Born to Let Go to the 2018 "Lâcher prise / Let Go" work is significant. Cossette retained the influencer-led episodic structure from the prior year while scaling it outward — adding markets, adding episodes, and planning a fall 2019 expansion into Mexico. The nine media assets catalogued on Clapboard.com reflect a production approach that prioritises authentic location footage and character-driven narrative over tourism-brochure aesthetics. Eva Van den Bulcke is named in the campaign's credited production context in connection with the Alliance's broader communications work during this period. Production credits for the full Born to Let Go episode roster are not comprehensively documented in publicly available sources beyond what Cossette and the Alliance have released via cossette.com and Newswire Ca.
No verified performance data for Born to Let Go is publicly available in terms of view counts, engagement rates, or measurable conversion to Québec tourism bookings. The campaign was not accompanied by a published results report from Cossette, the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec, or third-party measurement bodies at the time of its release or in the years following, based on available public documentation across The Drum, adsoftheworld.com, and strategyonline.ca.
What the structural choices reveal, however, is analytically useful. A tourism body operating in a market where visitor spending was growing at approximately 8 percent annually — according to strategyonline.ca — chose to invest in eight premium long-form episodes rather than traditional media buys. That decision reflects confidence that the target audiences in the United States, Ontario, and francophone markets engage with travel content as entertainment, and that a single emotionally resonant viewing experience converts more effectively than repeated exposure to short-form advertising.
The fall 2019 planned expansion into Mexico, as documented by cossette.com and travelcourier.ca, suggests the Alliance regarded the spring launch as a platform worth extending rather than a one-cycle activation. The campaign's strategic continuity with the 2018 "Lâcher prise / Let Go" series also indicates the Alliance was measuring something — likely qualitative brand sentiment or audience retention data from YouTube — that justified doubling down on the format. Clapboard assigns Born to Let Go a score of 71 out of 100, recognising the ambition and craft of its episodic model while noting the absence of publicly verifiable outcome data against which its full effectiveness can be assessed.
Born to Let Go is a 2019 Québec tourism content series created by Cossette for the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec. It comprised eight episodes, each three to five minutes long, released via the QuébecOriginal YouTube channel in spring 2019 and targeting US, Ontario, and French-speaking audiences across Canada and internationally.
Cossette created Born to Let Go for the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec. The campaign launched in Canada in March and April 2019. Cossette had also produced the Alliance's preceding 2018 long-form campaign, Lâcher prise / Let Go, making this a continuation of an established creative partnership between the two organisations.
Born to Let Go comprised eight episodes, each approximately three to five minutes long. Cossette and the Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec distributed the series through the QuébecOriginal YouTube channel, with the first episodes released in spring 2019 and additional episodes available by April 18, 2019, as reported by Travel Courier.
Born to Let Go targeted three priority markets: the United States, Ontario, and French-speaking audiences. Cossette announced the campaign on March 26, 2019, per reporting documented on cossette.com and adsoftheworld.com. A planned fall 2019 expansion also targeted Mexico, extending the campaign's geographic reach beyond its original spring release schedule.
Sébastien Viau, Vice-President of Sales and Marketing at Alliance de l'industrie touristique du Québec, stated in Travel Courier that the organisation observed strong audience appetite for longer content formats during its 2018 campaign. That insight directly informed the decision to build Born to Let Go as an eight-episode series rather than a conventional short-form advertising campaign.
Born to Let Go received a Clapboard Score of 71 out of 100. The score recognises the campaign's creative ambition and its episodic long-form structure as a genuinely differentiated approach to Québec tourism promotion. The absence of publicly verified performance metrics limits a fuller assessment of the campaign's measured commercial impact in Canada and its target markets.
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