What Québec Wants™

Distinct soil?

Better Farming, Ontario’s online community of professional farmers, reports that Ontario and Quebec will be pooling milk supplies to processors in both provinces.

According to Dave Nolan, Dairy Farmers of Ontario’s logistics director, Ontario and Quebec don’t pool their milk volume. “Quebec has their milk, which they allocate to their processors and we have our milk, which we allocate to our processors”. Pooling means the provinces will have to use the same terms and conditions to allocate milk to processors to ensure they receive it “in an equitable way.”

I’m sure this all makes sense from a logistics and operations standpoint. What about from a brand and marketing standpoint?

Some dairy processors’ brands have differentiated themselves with value-added benefits around purity and nutritional enhancements but consumers generally don’t perceive major differences between brands of milk.

One brand, Natrel, has been focusing on the origin of its milk. This outdoor poster shows a proud milk  farmer holding his land. The headline reads: Here’s my land. Here’s my milk.” I might be reading more than is intended in this message but it seems to go further than strictly a reference to geography the way, for example, Foodland Ontario used to emphasize freshness because Ontario produce doesn’t travel as far to reach supermarkets’ shelves.

This is about the significance of what “our land” produces. And that is anchored in Quebeckers’ strong sense of place and local pride.

It might explain in part the increasingly visible presence of “produits du terroir” at retail and on the web. The e-commerce website TerroirsQuebec offers an impressive array of products and is worth a visit.

There is some debate about what the term “terroir” should refer to. TerroirsQuebec’s blog offers this definition: a product that is grown in a specific region that also gives it a sense of history. It’s this second aspect – the sense of history – that gives terroir products an emotive dimension that resonates with Quebeckers.

In Quebec, having roots and being somehow attached to the land might be a competitive advantage for some brands in search of distinction.

• Premiere Moisson, the hugely successful artisan bakery uses only wheat grown in Quebec. 

• The SAQ, Quebec’s liquor board, operates an SAQ Terroir outlet in Le Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. The SAQ claims that sales of Quebec products have increased sixfold in five years.  

• And while it doesn’t say where its cows are grazing, Le P’tit Quebec cheese proved long ago that being from here matters in Quebec. 

A ¼ inch drill bit instead of a ¼ inch hole.

I just watched a presentation online given by Martin Ouellette, the head of Provokat, a Montreal-based digital advertising agency. It’s too bad it’s only available in French because it’s definitely worth taking 37 minutes to hear him speak about the “future without agencies”.  He spoke at a recent conference hosted by Infopresse. Here’s the link to Google Video where you can view his talk.

His point is that in the future advertising will be done without agencies because of the web. Consumers have become citizens who are once again closer to the producers of goods and services just as they were before advertising and media intermediated the relationship. In this new dynamic, “advertising” happens without agencies. This, according to Ouellette, spells the end of “traditional” advertising and, along with it, the end of advertising agencies.

I find it refreshing to hear someone talk about the end of the business model of “ad agencies” instead of the end of advertising, which isn’t dying but transforming itself.

We can call them what we want, but even in this new order, there will always be room for organizations who can help producers deliver a quality product or service, position it in a relevant and  differentiated way and give it visibility to broad or narrow audiences to sell it.

Some of the “traditional advertising agencies” Martin Ouellette talks about may have been selling clients a ¼ inch drill bit (advertising) when what they really want is a ¼ inch hole (a brand-building idea). This distinction is not new. Advertising agencies were concerned about the growing influence of consultants over their industry at least twenty five years ago.

Hijacking

It's a concept that isn't discussed in marketing textbook (at least not in the ones I've read) and it might mean different things to those who have adopted the practice.

I'm talking about hijacking (seizing control of…) - as in hijacking another brand's campaign.

I can think of three ways it's being done.

Spray-paint.

This one is usually the work of people who operate at night and involves writing your message by distorting an existing advertising message – usually a poster. This is otherwise known as vandalism and it’s illegal in most cases.

Add an ad to an ad.

This is the clever addition of your advertising message onto and existing brand campaign. I emphasize “clever” but I suspect it’s rarely legal since you’re ambushing another brand’s campaign.

Two examples:

One from Germany for Hubba Bubba bubble gum.

One from Québec for apparel retailer Henri Vézina during a provincial election.

 

Share a message. Share a campaign.

This involves some way of inserting your brand message in another brand's campaign aimed at generating AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire and Action).

For years, Country Harvest bread has emphasized the health benefits of whole grains. It has done so by stressing the importance of grains to promote heart health. The competitor, Bon Matin in Québec and Dempsters in Ontario, has just introduced a new line called HealthyWay ProCardio that’s all about heart health supported by a multi-media campaign.

So Country Harvest rides on the campaign by inserting itself (we hope) just before Desire translates into Action with an outdoor campaign we launched this week.

Brand attribution is often a challenge in advertising. Only time will tell which brand will get attributed to the heart health messages bombarding consumers right 

Value over price-cutting

In a recently published white paper entitled “Brand building in Quebec in uncertain times” we wrote that marketers should emphasize value over price reduction. A few readers asked me for proof. Here it is: research evidence that discounting damages brands. (As reported by Brandweek)

Yankelovich’s Dollars & Consumer Sense 2009 study found that consumers often have a negative reaction when they see the price slashed for their favorite product or service.

In fact, 70% of respondents said such cuts probably mean the brand was overpriced in the first place. 62%  said they assumed that the product was old and they were just trying to get rid of it.

Brands that do not discount achieve a positive halo among many consumers. 64% said they assume the product is either extremely popular or a good value if they maintain their price.

Up to 60% believed companies that cut prices would continue to do so. Marketers should create expectations of ongoing value, not ongoing price cuts.

Je me souviens.

The Canadian Press  reports that a Quebec entrepreneur obtained a licence from the CRTC in February to launch a TV network dedicated to broadcasting digital obituaries. The French-language specialty channel will charge a fee to broadcast obituaries, prayers, hospitalization notices and messages of thanks.

"The goal of this channel is to tell stories," Gérald Dominique said in an interview with The Canadian Press. "How many stories are lost all over the world each year - great stories about people's lives - those are the stories we hope to tell.”

Do Quebeckers care more or less about these stories? How interested are they in their family history and their ancestors?

A survey conducted by Ipsos Reid in May 2006 on behalf of Ancestry.ca paints an interesting picture.

80% of Canadians admit that they are interested in learning more about their family’s history. Residents of Quebec and B.C are least likely to say they’re interested.

Ipsos asked about the reasons for the lack of interest (you already know as much as you care to, you don’t think it matters, you never thought about it before, you’d rather keep the past in the past, it is impossible to trace your family’s history). Quebeckers are the most likely to say they “don’t think it matters”.

These are surprising findings considering Quebeckers’ strong sense of belonging and their deep connection to their roots.

Websites that suck.

Vincent Flanders has a website called Web Pages That Suck.

For thirteen years now, he’s been listing bad websites so that we can all learn from other people’s mistakes.

I visited it again recently and found what will soon be a collector’s item; the now inactive home page of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC.

Bernie’s website gets an honorary mention. Have a look at the page. I love the "Advanced Technology. Sophisticated Trading. Global Access" flashing bits.

This guy had to be charmer with a website like this.

For a related post on financial advisers, click click here.

Mind reading

How Facebook could become the greatest insight-mining tool. It’s free and anyone can dig.

In the mid-nineties I worked for the Toronto office of a U.S. based multinational agency that had developed a market research tool called Mind & Mood. It’s apparently still being used.  It was described as a “unique discovery process that uncovers gut-level customer insights and strategic and creative triggers. The agency (and sometimes clients) interacts directly with customers - in homes, or where customers buy or use the products or services - so customers are relaxed, answers are honest and insights are fresh”. In short, it’s participative observation. I remember receiving a fancy tool kit that included a flashlight. I don’t remember its purpose. Perhaps it was meant for the really deep insights you gather in complete darkness.

A few years later, I worked for another global agency network headquartered in Paris. I met with the head of planning in the Paris office to be introduced to the suite of planning tools developed by the agency. One was called “Life Track”. A catchy name for conducting depth interviews with average folks on the train on the way to and from work. Another was called “Context Analysis”. It involved a review of print media content (mostly magazines) to identify trends in society. It was based on the belief that what people read in magazines today can be a predictor of what the mainstream will think or do in the future. It’s also still being used today according to the firm’s website: “Context Analysis identifies powerful insights that have the potential to compel media interest and drive consumer influence. By analyzing themes recently emergent in forward-looking media, we can pin down four to six lifestyle movements that may inspire communication campaigns, positioning initiatives and even new products and services.”

The techniques differ but the aim is usually the same; insight mining. And agencies go to great lengths to create and brand proprietary insight mining tools.

So here it is, free of charge: a new non-proprietary, “open” insight-mining tool any agency can tap into. All you have to do is brand it with a fancy name followed by the letters “TM”. For now, let’s call it “Open Book TM”.

What’s on your mind?

Facebook’s new home page expected to go live next week has changed the status update box to simply asks: "What's on your mind?" instead of “What are you doing right now?”

This is the magic of Open Book TM. Get a thousand friends that are representative cross-section of the market that you wish to mine for insights and conduct regular content analysis of what’s on their “mind”. Report on it in real time via a blog or some other online tool that invites comments and engages other insight miners in conversations.

Jay Chiat once said that Account Planning was the best new business tool ever invented. I predict that Open Book TM or some variation of it will soon be the best new business tool ever invented. That is, until Facebook goes back to the old status box because friends will discover that it’s a lot harder to write about what on their mind that what they’re up to.

Innovation in a depression

What do Tampax, the car radio, Monopoly, the supermarket and laundromats have in common?

This post isn’t about building brands in Quebec specifically. It’s about how iconic inventions were introduced during the Great Depression - a bit of inspiration for gloomy times thanks to Business Week.

Click here for a great slide show .

Sleepless in Québec

Ad Age is reporting that sales of sleeping pills in the U.S. have increased in 2008 from 2007. The total over-the-counter market for sleep aids reached $604 million in 2008, an increase of 9% over 2007 according to Packaged Facts, a division of Rockville, Md.-based Market Research Group.

The recession apparently keeps us up at night.

Ad Age quotes Dr. Robert Aronson, a sleep specialist at Cardinal Sleep Center in Joliet, Ill., “there is a correlation between the falling economy, a lack of sleep and the uptick in prescriptions and purchase of sleep aids”

Quebeckers and sleeping aids

We don’t have data on Quebeckers’ use of prescription products but they appear significantly less likely to use over-the-counter sleeping aids according to PMB 2008 – 3.9% of Quebeckers report using sleeping tablets in the past six months compared to 5.3% of Canadians in the ROC.

While Quebeckers might be less likely to use sleeping pills, a study conducted by Laval University and published in the journal of Sleep suggests that many people use alcohol as a way to promote sleep. The research found the money spent on the use of booze as a sleep aid far exceeds costs associated with visits to doctors and the use of prescription pills and over-the-counter products from antihistamines to herbal teas.

The study was only conducted in Quebec so it’s not clear if this is a bigger or lesser issue in Quebec than in the ROC. According to a story by Canwest News Service, we’ll soon know the answer since the researchers are planning a similar study throughout Canada.

System overload in Québec

Rarely do we see such marked differences in survey results when comparing Québec to the rest of Canada. Particularly in the business-to-business sector.

When it comes to information technology, business managers and executives in Québec say their IT people are stretched to meet their business’ IT needs – significantly more so than in the rest of Canada.

This is one of the findings from a survey of 1005 Canadians managers and executives conducted by Ipsos Reid in February on behalf of Microsoft.

It’s not clear from this survey if this is a function of limited human resources in the IT area of Québec businesses, historically lower investments in IT, or another more attitudinal reason. Whatever the cause, those selling IT solutions to Québec businesses should take this data into consideration. The “do more with less” story some are using in these recessionary times might sound way too familiar.