CREA’s 2026 Ad Campaign: Championing REALTOR® Value to First-Time Home Buyers
With new humour, partnerships, locations, and more.
The Canadian Real Estate Association’s (CREA) 2026 national advertising campaign is officially underway! Running through September 21, 2026, the campaign continues to build REALTOR® brand equity by reinforcing the value REALTORS® provide as trusted partners in the home buying and selling process.
We're taking a closer look at what’s new for 2026, and how REALTORS® can help amplify the message.
Reduce, reuse, recycle great content!
You may be familiar with some of the content from last year's campaign—after all, it was seen more than 685 million times throughout the six-month 2025 run. With a number of ads and media platforms reached, everything was centred around one idea, “Together, we’ll make home happen.”
Because we saw favourable outcomes from our concepts last year, this year’s campaign is anchored in the strategic reuse of the highest performing ads to ensure efficiency and visibility.
Where we did create new ads, we used the same proven concept to complement and extend our previous work.
Using humour to tell a story
The new ads we did create this year are a series of social media video ads targeting first-time buyers, designed to capture the attention of social audiences-mid scroll and drive early engagement with a REALTOR®.
But, we did it a little differently. We’re calling it the “REALTORS® Explain” series.
These ads are targeted towards first-time home buyers, people who find the home-buying process confusing, to let them know REALTORS® are experts who guide them through each step and make the journey easier. That group largely contains people born in the 80s and 90s. Taking that into consideration, we developed ads that speak to their interests and sense of humour based on both nostalgic and topical references.
Think quirky, charming, colourful, light, and humorous.
From checking your finances to closing the deal, these 10 attention-grabbing ads communicate why working with a REALTOR® is the only way to buy a house in Canada; that is, if you don’t want to make choices like some of the characters in the cutaway shot.
We don’t expect you to take our word for it, though. We invite REALTORS® to watch the ads and see for yourself how this concept was applied.
See, wasn’t that fun? We hope you had a little laugh.
REALTORS® are invited to share these ads with their clients to help further the message; especially first-time home buyers who could use a little extra guidance with a side of stress-reducing laughter.
New year, expanded reach
We are continuing partnering with content creators on social media as it proves very impactful in terms of reach and engagement.
This spring we have lined up five partnerships with Instagram and TikTok creators from across Canada and in a variety of content categories. In their videos, they share their real home buying and selling experiences that were made possible by the help of their REALTOR®.
Stay tuned for more partnerships later this year.
This year we’re also experimenting with regional targeting.
That means we’re creating versions of the ad campaign with messaging specific to local markets. We will be beginning with Calgary, the Prairies, and the Maritimes. If you’re in one of these spots, be sure to keep an eye out!
Pro tip: Consider taking photos of these ads out in your city and sharing to social media as an additional way to amplify the message locally.
Where else to keep an eye out
The full set of ads will be distributed through a number of different media mediums, including:
- Connected TV (streaming services and devices including Netflix, Prime Video and Roku), online video (YouTube) and social media (Instagram, Facebook and TikTok);
- digital out-of-home ads in Toronto, Ontario, and Vancouver, British Columbia, (transit, billboards); and
- pre-show ads at select movie theatres to capture high-attention audiences.
How REALTORS® can join in
Interested in spreading the word? As we already mentioned, the easiest way to participate is simply sharing the campaign. Whether that be the videos, images of the ads out in your community, or even this article—spreading the message helps to reinforce the value REALTORS® bring to every real estate transaction.
To make things easier, we’ve also created ready-to-download social media posts (including captions) that you can use, as well as customizable Canva templates that are aligned with the ad themes. Head to CREA’s Member Portal to access these resources.
You can work these assets into your social calendar or use them as paid ads to expand your reach.
A Canva account is required to access and use these templates. The paid version of Canva is not required.
