What Québec Wants™

Movement marketing

Scott Goodson: What Marketers Can Learn From The Largest Act Of Civil Disobedience in Canadian History.

ERIC BLAIS

I’m a big fan of Montreal-born Scott Goodson and his agency StrawberryFrog.

And I see the value in what he calls ‘cultural movement marketing’. A marketing model his agency says ‘builds brands by identifying, sparking, organizing, leading and/or aligning with an idea on the rise in culture and building a multiplatform communications around this idea so that passionate advocates can belong, rally, engage and bring about change.’

Since he's from Montreal, I can also see Scott Goodson’s interest in the ‘movement’ that started 102 days ago opposing a proposed increase in tuition fees. He published his thoughts yesterday in Forbes about the lessons marketers can draw from the Quebec student protests.

Goodson writes: "Marketers have the resources and clout to explore some of these stories and issues themselves, or to fund talented storytellers (and there are a lot of them out there) who can bring these ideas to life. The key here is in finding ideas that people can feel passionate about—ideas that folks can rally around. Those ideas can form the basis of a movement."

He also warns marketers: "Marketers entering this domain must have some integrity and some guts. Movement marketing works best when it’s done with honesty and openness. The Montreal uprising igniters can attest to how much scrutiny this kind of storytelling is subject to; people will question the agenda of any marketer getting involved in telling real stories or tackling real issues. So only get involved with stories you genuinely believe in and care about. And be straight with people."

I agree with Goodson’s conclusion: "I think marketers are going to need to move in this direction to connect with people in a deeper, more meaningful way—beyond the tired salespitches and fluffy commercials."

However, when the movement leads to violence and civil disobedience, I can’t think of products and services marketers who would jump at the opportunity to link to the cause and fuel the movement.

Frenglish media in Québec

MARIE-CLAUDE DUCAS

Earlier this month, Cineplex launched “Les jeudis sans doublage” (no-dubbing Thursdays), in several theaters across Québec. “Your favorite actors! Their real voices!” claims Cineplex’s website.

Several movie theatres have featured films in their original English version in the Montreal area. However, the marketing program “Les jeudis sans doublage” brings them to theatres that, so far, have been catering to mostly francophone audiences: in the Montreal suburbs of Dorion and Delson, in the Québec City area, and in the towns of Victoriaville, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, and Sherbrooke. “A good part of our audience has expressed an interest in seeing the latest productions in their original English version” explained Daniel Séguin, vice-president for Eastern Canada and general manager in Québec at Cineplex Entertainment in a press release.

The Avengers: many French-speaking moviegoers prefer to see it in English, with the "real voices" of Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L. Jackson.

“Officials” statistics on the proportion of francophones who prefer to see movies in their original English version are hard to get by. But the offer in original versions is quite important in the Montreal area. This post, on the blog “Watts at the movie” (written in French…), provides a good overview of what is available, and where. “I am “born bilingual” (…). I do not even realize if I read something in French or English, or if I  read something in French or English, or if I see a movie in one or the other language”, writes the author.

While the news media in Québec routinely feature headlines and reports about the threat posed by the “Anglicization”, or even the “bilinguisation” of the city, many Montrealers still pride themselves on the bilingual character of Montréal. “67% of French-speaking adults in Montréal consider themselves able to sustain a conversation in English”, says Jean-François Bourdeau, head of research at the media strategy agency Touché! PHD .

English media manage to capture a fair deal of time from that bilingual audience: French-speaking Montrealers account for 28% of the total listening hours at CTV, 33% at CBC  and as much as 42% at Global !

English radio stations also attract a fair deal of francophone listeners. That may be less surprising, given their predominantly musical content, but the amount of listening from French-speaking Montrealers is truly impressive: for the pop-rock station Virgin Radio they represent 51% of the total listening hours by those aged 18 and more, and  55% for the 18 to 34 age group. At CHOM, Montreal’s rock station, francophones bring in a staggering 63% of the listening hours from the 18 and more. And, of that amount, 77% of the hours are generated by the 45 to 65 age group (Astral owns Virgin Radio, CHOM , like CJAD 800, Montreal’s English talk radio. The other prominent English radio station is the “The Beat” (formerly Q92), owned until recently by Corus, and bought in early 2011 by Cogeco.)

For these English language media outlets, all those ears and eyeballs belonging to “bilingual francophones” are worth… absolutely nothing.

In Montreal, French- and English-speaking markets are accounted for separately. Advertisers, as well as media-buying agencies, have always refused to pay for the French-speaking listeners of English-language media. “The media representatives don’t even try cash in on their French-speaking listeners, observes Jean-François Boudreau. The further that some of them will go, during negotiations, is to remind us of all the audience that we get for free.”

Even on TV, where one could argue that francophones who choose to watch programs such as Desperate Housewives, 30 Rock or C.S.I. in their original version may represent a particularly well-educated and affluent segment, the issue is just not raised.

But then, this dynamic also works, sometimes, the other way. “In Québec, RDS, the French sports network, reaches more anglophones than TSN does, observes Jean-François Bourdeau. And that audience is not accounted for, either."

__________________________

Marie-Claude Ducas is a journalist and blogger specializing in communications, marketing and media, and the past editor-in-chief of Infopresse, Québec's leading publication in the field of communications and marketing. You can also read her posts in French at marieclaudeducas.com. 

Victoria, Patriots, Canada Day, Moving Day: How national retailers celebrate national holidays in Québec and the RoC.

ERIC BLAIS

This is a big weekend for retailers. It marks the beginning of the summer season and retailers' flyers are loaded with offers on seasonal products.

It’s also, of course, Victoria Day in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. The holiday has been observed since before Canada was formed, originally falling on the sovereign's actual birthday, and continues to be celebrated in various fashions across the country on the fixed date.

Since the sixties, this day was unofficially known in Québec as the Fête de Dollard until 2003, when provincial legislation officially named the same date as Victoria Day the National Patriots' Day.

So what do you call this weekend if you’re a retailer in Québec?

It gets complicated.

Take the Future Shop. It invites shoppers to check out its Victoria Day store hours in English while the French version of the same flyer refers to the ‘long weekend’ - no Victoria, no Patriots.

This same approach appears to have been adopted by Metro.

Furniture retailer Germain Larivière, with stores only in Québec, is celebrating the Patriots.

The most common approach seems to be to stay away from the Queen or the Patriots and to simply celebrate the ‘Long Weekend’ across the country. That’s the approach adopted by the Home Depot and many others.

It gets even more complicated for the Canada Day long weekend. Although it’s technically Canada Day across the country, July 1st is better known in Québec as moving day.

This Future Shop flyer from last year is about Canada Day in English and about Moving in French.

Perhaps the most striking example is Canadian Tire’s flyers in Québec last year.

It offered Canada Day Super Deals in English, including a Canadian flag for $9.99.

The Québec version makes no reference to Canada Day and there is no flag offer.

For more on this fascinating topic, read Fagstein’s blog post.

My advice: grab a cold one, and enjoy the Long Weekend.

Québec’s Oprah: Guy A. Lepage’s outsized influence

ERIC BLAIS

It's been called the Oprah effect.

According to this 2009 article published in Inc. magazine, “Even a casual mention of a product, exposed to her (Oprah’s) 44 million weekly viewers, is a boon for the company that makes or sells that product. Several companies from the 2009 Inc. 500|5000 have been so lucky as to score a spot on The Oprah Winfrey Show over the past three years, perhaps accounting for a great deal of their growth during that period.”

When Oprah endorses products and people, including a Presidential candidate, they’re adopted or elected. Read this Time article Under the Influence of Oprah for more.

Québec also has a talk show host, actor, comedian, producer who has Oprah-like influence.

Guy A. Lepage is the host of the immensely popular weekly talk show Tout le monde en parle on Radio Canada. The show typically draws over a million viewers each week. Although its audience has dropped under the million mark earlier this year.

Jack Layton was a guest on Tout le monde en parle during the last federal election. Guy A. Lepage called him a ‘bon Jack’ - a Québécois expression for a ‘good guy’. Quebeckers went on to vote for an orange wave of MPs. Many of them had not even bothered campaigning. The NDP’s success in the province can’t be attributed solely to Guy A. Lepage’s ‘bon Jack’ endorsement but I’d argue it was the tipping point. For more on this, read this previous blog post.

The high priest of Sunday night television also makes his views known outside his Tout le monde en parle soap box. He tweets regularly to his 115,000 followers.

He recently tweeted his outrage at juice maker Lassonde for its aggressive legal stance on a trademark issue. Over the course of a weekend, the issue went from a newspaper article in La Presse to an online explosion fueled in a large part by Guy A. Lepage’s announcement that he’d boycott Lassonde, a Québec Inc. success story. For more on this, read this previous blog post.

Last year, Guy A. Lepage was musing about boycotting Banque Nationale because its VP of IT was a unilingual anglophone. The headline in Le Devoir read: “Guy A. Lepage considers boycotting Banque National. ‘I can’t believe that we cannot find bilingual bankers!’

It would be an understatement to say that things are rather ‘tensed’ in Québec these days. And they may well get ‘tenser’ as the Charest government takes more drastic steps to end the student protests.

Québec’s Oprah is of course adding his voice to the debate.

In an article in yesterday’s Le Journal de Montréal about the preparations for the Fête nationale on June 24th, Guy A. Lepage says ‘there is collective indignation’ right now in Québec. The article claims that in the midst of a social crisis, the Fête nationale celebrations at the Maisonneuve park will be more political than ever and that artists aren’t afraid of words.

These are strong words from a powerful media personality.

Québec’s students may be losing the war (for public opinion) but they’re winning the internet battle.

ERIC BLAIS

The student protest in Québec over tuition costs is now in its 14th week.

Line Beauchamp, the Education Minister and deputy premier resigned yesterday. Jean Charest is vowing to end the unrest that’s paralyzed a city and made headlines here and abroad.

This isn't a political blog so we won't get involved in the debate. However, the whole saga offers an interesting study of how the media covered this story and how each side is using the media, including social media, to mobilize its supporters and shape public opinion.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the spokesperson for the CLASSE, the most radical of the student associations involved in this protest, is on the front cover of Québec leading newsmagazine L’actualité. He has become a media darling.

The same issue of l’Actualité includes a very insightful article by Jean-François Lisée on how the students have been outsmarting the government by leveraging the web, especially social media. Adman Jean-Jacques Stréliski calls it the ‘quiet e-revolution’.

This revolution happens at Internet speed and the government isn’t as fast as the students. The Minister resigned at 15:45 yesterday. Almost 24 hours later, the website set up by the government to tell its story www.droitsdescolarite.com  still shows videos of the Minister explaining the government’s position and stating that ‘the Government of Québec has signed an agreement in principle with the four student associations’.

By the way, the government’s website has been ‘highjacked’ by students who created a similar looking site.

In ‘traditional media’, the government ran newspaper ads in Québec’s major newspapers on April 29th outlining its ‘global solution’. It had the requisite Government of Québec visual identity in the bottom right corner. Whoever designed these ads chose to add a squiggle in the bottom left corner of the ad. There must be a reason. If anyone knows what it’s meant to communicate, we’d like to know.

Poor Zoomers

ERIC BLAIS

The current issue of Zoomer magazine features a sharp-looking John Irving on the cover. He’s a zoomer, not a boomer.

The term was apparently coined by Dr. David Zemko, a gerontologist, to refer to "a totally new a kind of Boomer [born between 1946 and 1964]. One who breaks retirement tradition. These new boomers are coloring outside the lines, zig-zaging and zoooooming toward a bright new horizon chock-full of possibilities for reinventing retirement and redefining what it means to be a mature adult in the new millennium."

Retirement is being redefined. And so are ‘retirement’ magazines.

Québec’s Le bel âge magazine recently underwent a makeover to project a more youthful image.

According to the magazine’s Editor, Jean-Louis Gauthier, quoted in La Presse: ‘the problem is that women in their sixties, who are the magazine’s target reader, don’t want to be told they’re old. People always see themselves as 10 or 15 years younger. We had to rethink our magazine’s cover to show younger looking women."

The women the magazine interviewed in focus groups said they like the magazine’s content but don’t want to be seen reading it. That’s not the only issue. Advertisers don’t want to be seen in them. Anti-wrinkle creams will advertise in Vogue and Elle but will stay away from seniors magazines. Even Québec’s aging celebrities will refuse to be featured in these books citing that it’s not good for their image.

Frédéric Serrière, head of Senior Strategic consultancy and author of several books on marketing for seniors explains the issue this way in Brand Channel: "Many brands do not want to be associated with strictly senior products. If an advert is geared towards a senior market exclusively, it often harms the product. A brand may not want to advertise in a magazine geared exclusively to seniors for fear of being associated with “old people” brands, which may damage their image. These brands don't want to be linked to other 'senior' products."

Seniors are often described as this great untapped market. We’re told they want to make the most of their hard-earned retirement. Baby boomers are particularly active and self-indulgent consumers. They live in relative financial comfort, and have the time and will to spend their money.

Another article on the subject in Brand Channel - The Senior Market - Turning Silver Into Gold - reminds marketers that "there is a big distinction between marketing to what are termed “leading-edge” or “first wave” baby boomers in their 50s and 60s, and marketing to seniors. For example, leading-edge boomers are seeking financial independence, whereas seniors are more interested in physical independence. Failure to distinguish the difference is a death knell for any brand hoping to secure credibility with either group."

We hear much about seniors’ financial freedom but when it comes to seniors living in Québec, marketers should take a closer look at the living conditions of many seniors. They are a long way from walks on the beach or country homes with lovely gardens.

Seniors in Québec

In 2001, the Canadian Council for Social Development named Montréal the poverty capital of Canada due to its whopping 41 per cent poverty rate. While that number had dropped to 34 per cent by 2007, the city still ranked first place for poverty in all major urban centres in Canada - including Toronto, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.

Some of the hardest hit are Québec seniors, who have the highest rates of poverty in Canada (9.3 per cent, compared to the country's lowest in Saskatchewan at 1.9 per cent, according to 2004 statistics).

There are also indications that they live alone - Québec has the highest percentage of single person households - and that their children aren’t around much. Ten years ago, Yankelovich asked about the major challenges facing most people over 55 today. 54% of Canadians outside Québec said that ‘taking care of their elderly parents’ would be a challenge. That number dropped to 36% in Québec.

Zoomer Magazine and Le bel âge are targeting ‘leading-edge’ affluent baby boomers because that’s who advertisers want to appeal to and who they want their brands associated with. Case in point: Depends underwear advertising doesn’t show elderly women with walkers. Instread, it shows Lisa Rinna walking the red carpet.

Seniors magazines are aiming for younger readers and most brands do not wish to be associated with ‘old’seniors.

There might be a hole in the seniors' market but is there a market in the hole?

Québec gastronomy: oxymoron no more

MARIE-CLAUDE DUCAS

Not long ago, the expression “Québec gastronomy” would easily have been dismissed as an oxymoron. No more. Today, the usual foreign media coverage about “la joie de vivre” in cities such as Montréal, Québec City, and in the province of Québec in general includes abundant references to high-quality restaurants of all ranges and prices, and of the innovative young chefs that lead them.  This article published in August 2010 in the magazine Travel & Leisure is just one of many examples. More recently, New York’s celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain was in Montréal shooting an episode of his TV show The Layover. He later sang the praises of the "uniquely crazy, uniquely individualistic and rugged and excessive and wonderful” cuisine there.

These are some of the leading figures that have been attracting attention for a while: Normand Laprise, who created Toqué! in 1993 in Montréal;  Martin Picard, chef and founder of Montréal’s  Au Pied de Cochon, who first reached celebrity thanks to his infamous “Poutine au foie gras”  (more on that later); and Daniel Vézina of Québec City’s Laurie Raphaël, who branched out in Montréal five years ago.

Normand Laprise of Toqué!: one of the trailblazers of Québec's "chef set".

All three were part, this spring, of a panel titled Y a-t-il une gastronomie québécoise  (Is there a Québec gastronomy?), organized by Montréal’s daily La Presse.  According to this article by columnist Marie-Claude Lortie who has covered extensively food and gastronomy in Montréal, you could sum up the answer with: “yes, but…”. Yes, there is a Québec gastronomy, but it is still being built, according to Normand Laprise. It does not have millennial roots like Chinese gastronomy, no elaborate code like French cuisine, has not been exported everywhere like Italian dishes have been, and does not have the revolutionary exuberance of the new Spanish cuisine.

Still, a consensus has emerged remarkably quickly over what characterizes the new “Québécois cuisine”. It involves, among other things, rehabilitating and upgrading some traditional and often low-brow dishes such as the “pâté chinois” (Québec’s version of the shepherd’s pie), the tourtière (traditional Québécois meat pie), and using some local products that people have long tended to disregard such as corn, potatoes, maple syrup and other ingredients that are found on traditional sugar shack menus. Talking about maple syrup, there’s a movement pushing for the recognition of the regional differences in the same logic of the “appellations contrôlées” for the different wine regions of France.  

The impact of some of those innovative chefs has been magnified by their presence in the media, and of course by the books they publish. Picard has taken part in the series Martin sur la route, broadcast on Radio-Canada, and which he referred to as “his road movie”.  An English version was broadcast on Canada’s The Food Network, under the title “The Wild Chef”. Daniel Vézina has a show on the specialized network Zeste, Québec’s answer to The Food Channel. And he will be host, for the third time this summer, of “Les chefs”, a reality-TV-style program featuring aspiring chefs (Normand Laprise is one of the judges).

What is becoming known as Québec’s gastronomy also involves some daring mashups between some aspects of traditional French gastronomy and the Québécois heritage that’s strongly permeated by the North American way of life. In that regard, it is Québec’s manifestation of a trend that is emerging everywhere in Canada: the wave of “blended cuisine”, which followed the diversification of the population, the proliferation of ethnic food restaurant, the availability of imported and exotic foods in grocery and specialty stores, a growing awareness of the health benefits of following certain diets associated with some ethnic cultures (“Mediterranean”, of course, comes to mind.). It is one aspect that is constantly praised about Québec’s leading restaurants: they’ve been able to marry the sophistication of imported European gastronomy with a relaxed atmosphere more in touch with the American mentality.

Martin Picard's "Poutine au fois gras": don't ask about the cholesterol level. (Source for the picture) 

Some of Québec’s trailblazers in the “chef set” have French roots, such as Jérôme Ferrer, founder and owner of Europea, Andiamo and Beaver Hall Bistro. Most of the others have done at least part of their training in France. Picard has had the idea of upgrading the “poutine”, consisting originally of French fries with gravy and cheese curds. He composed his own recipe, involving prime quality ingredients, and adding homegrown Québec foie gras. No one wants to know about the cholesterol levels... But it made Picard an international star.

___________________________

Marie-Claude Ducas is a journalist and blogger specializing in communications, marketing and media, and the past editor-in-chief of Infopresse, Québec's leading publication in the field of communications and marketing. You can also read her posts in French at marieclaudeducas.com. 

Juicy story

As the story of Québec juice maker Lassonde unfolded over the weekend, three aspects stood out from all the traditional and social media noise.

First, a quick review of the story:

• Susan Krashinsky’s article in the Globe and Mail today: Juice maker squeezed by social media outcry
• Postmedia News’ Marianne White’s article in The Gazette yesterday: Québec juice maker Lassonde forced to settle lawsuit after online backlash

‘Traditional’ media ignited the social media storm.

It took an article entitled ‘Pas touche au mot ‘oasis’ (Don’t touch the word ‘oasis’) in the printed and online editions of La Presse on Saturday to focus attention on this legal battle between the giant juice maker and the tiny soap maker. 

Québec’s celebrity cult amplified the story online.

While Twitter and Facebook were already abuzz with angry comments about Lassonde’s actions, alarm bells really went off when the highly influential host of SRC’s Tout le monde en parle, Guy A. Lepage, tweeted his decision to boycott Oasis to his more than 100,000 followers.

Local matters more?

I was struck by a line in Lassonde’s statement quoting its vice-president of communications, Stefano Bertolli: “We never intentionally wanted to harm another Quebec business.”
A Québec business? I get the impression that Lasonde’s decision to play hard ball to protect its trademark would have gone largely unnoticed if it had picked a fight with a small soap maker operating outside Québec. The fact that David and Goliath were both from Québec made it more personal.

Near-field marketing and dépanneurs

Interesting article by Susan Krashinsky in today’s Globe’s ROB about iSign Media Solutions’ partnership with Mac’s and Couche-Tard. I’ll make sure to walk by a Couche-Tard next month to see how ads get pushed to my iPhone.

There’s much buzz about the potential of mobile marketing but we’ll have to wait a bit for it to be fully realized - particularly in Québec where only one 4 in 10 have a smartphone.

[Source: Ipsos Reid survey conducted on behalf of PayPal between January 27 and February 1, 2012.]

Target targets Toronto

Designer Jason Wu popped up in Toronto last week to give future Target shoppers a taste of the retailer's latest designer apparel line.

The one-day (and first-ever) pop-up store in Canada located on King Street saw another first for the market: a charitable donation to the United Way that matched 100% of sales that day.

Target also made sure that Bullseye, the retailer’s mascot, made it to Toronto for the occasion.

 

To our knowledge, no such event took place in Montreal. As Target brings its offer to Canada, and along with it its brand icons, we will be looking at how it adapts it all for the Québec market.