ParticipACTION's English infrastructure and French for the history as official Canada's (1971-2001) languages two official paralleled first by languages. the the initial recognition "In act establishing of 1969, and promotion then the by legal secof ParticipACTION's English and French as Canada's two official languages. "In establishing the legal infrastructure for the official languages irst by the initial act of 1969, then by sections 16 to 23 of the Constitution Act, 1982 and, lastly, by the new Act in 1988 the federal government made linguistic duality a fundamental part of the Canadian identity."1 During that same period, Canada became more linguistically diverse and underwent challenging debates on national unity. The French Canadian identity slowly gave way to the Francophone regional identities of the Quebecers, Acadians, Franco-Saskatchewanians, Franco-Ontarians, Franco-Manitobans, etc.2 National advertisers increasingly recognized Quebec as a unique market that required distinctive strategies developed by Quebec-based agencies. Ultimately, these trends meant that contrived efforts through the mere translation of advertisements created in English would be ignored or resented by many Frenchspeaking Canadians. Like all federally funded programs and organizations, ParticipACTION was expected to perform well by reaching all Canadians in both official languages "from coast to coast". And perform it did. In a 1994 survey, French-speaking respondents were most aware of ParticipACTION.3 Given that the mother tongue of more than 80% of Quebecers is French and that approximately 85% of Canadians whose first language is French live in Quebec, Quebec respondents' unaided awareness of ParticipACTION was the highest in the country: 31% in Quebec, followed by 23% in the Atlantic provinces. The national average for unaided awareness was 17%. Aided awareness was very high in all parts of the country, including Quebec: 89% nationally, 97% in the Atlantic provinces, 95% in the West, 89% in Quebec, and 82% in Ontario. Some 70% of Quebec respondents rated ParticipACTION's efforts as very useful, the highest rating in the country. The national average was 60%. This ability of a national program to reach both English and French Canadians is outstanding. In addition, the campaign was carried out with limited funds because ParticipACTION's budgets did not allow for the production of totally different English and French campaigns. This article examines the three factors that explain such a high level of achievement: the genesis of the organization, people's attitude and skills, and the involvement of skilled staff and suppliers at every step of the creative development and production process. Yet, these factors taken on their own do not constitute a magic formula. This retrospective analysis should serve as a case study for other organizations that have a mission and the motivation to reach national objectives in bi/multilingual or bi/multicultural settings.