What Québec Wants™

One-upmanship

 

Wikipedia defines one-upmanship as the art or practice of successively outdoing a competitor. And if marketing is mainly about creating relevant differentiation, there has to be a good dose of one-upmanship in any strategy to succeed.

I’m a fan of Home Depot’s campaign in Québec. The global retailer took steps to study this market and developed a campaign that clearly resonates with Quebeckers. Built around the thematic “C’est beau” (It’s beautiful), it emphasizes the end-result of home renovation projects and the pleasures it provides rather than the ‘you can do it’ part of DIY projects. The campaign is clearly working as it won an effectiveness award at the 2009 Concours STRAT in Québec.

The local competitor, Réno Dépôt, has long been associated with a claim that, whatever you might be looking for, “they have it”. It might still be the retailer’s relevant and differentiated platform. (It’s the brand signature on the website. However, these days the retailer is running a campaign that attempts one-upmanship. It’s claiming that Réno Dépôt is “more than beautiful”. The implication being that beyond looks alone, Réno Dépôt ensures that it’s well built. There’s nothing wrong with a strategy that counters a competitor’s claim.

What’s debatable however is an execution of this strategy that very overtly makes a reference to that competitor’s advertising.

Would Adidas ever just do it more? Would Audi be the penultimate driving experience? Or would PC’s ever think even more different?

 

 

Say one thing. Say it well.

 

That's how someone who knew what he was talking about once summed up effective brand marketing-communications. I'd argue the same could be said of effective marcom for political parties.

Watching the post budget spin yesterday on CBC, I was struck at how each party is sticking to a very clear script at this early stage. All delivered talking points that must have been developed based on much strategizing informed by tons of quant and qual research.

Listening to Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty defend his budget and his failed attemps at meeting the demands of the NDP, I heard two words repeated in almost every sentence: "uncertainty" and "risk". The obvious implication being that the Harper Government (as our government is now being branded) is the only viable option to keep a steady hand on the economy in these turbulent times.

The NDP's Jack Layton stuck to his script too: how can a country so rich leave so many in need?

Gilles Duceppe doesn't need as much strategizing and polling. He sticks to what keeps the Bloc in Ottawa. And it isn't the party's goal of sovereignty. It's the need to defend Quebec's interest in a federal system that doesn't.

Michael Ignatieff delivered his talking points too. But it wasn't as single-minded. The Liberal party is attacking the government on the issue of trust. That's single-minded enough. And seems to be the right way to go given that Canadians haven't trusted the Conservatives enough to give them a majority. But at this early stage of the messaging game, the Liberals seem to be using trust to drive home two messages hoping one or both will resonate and get traction as they say in this business. You can't trust Harper with the economy. And you can't trust him with power. The first is an attempt to weaken the Conservatives where they hope to fight a majority-winning battle. The second is an attempt to stir up outrage around abuse of power and scandals. An area the Conservatives would prefer not to discuss. Which is why the government would rather be defeated on the budget than on contempt of Parliament.

I can only imagine the high-level strategizing taking place at this time. They're saying one thing (mostly) and saying it well. But that won't last very long. Political campaigns can be messy and very often lose their focus. Particularly when the 'nervous nellies' (as Jean Chrétien used to call them) start getting nervous when the daily polls don't go in the right direction. That's when the ads get developed and produced overnight by over-excited advertising folks who forget the basic rules of their craft. Strategic mistakes are made. And senior party officials are quoted in the press saying that this message was never approved. Enjoy the show.

 

Digital laggards in Montréal and Québec City

The Globe and Mail publishes today partial results from a comprehensive new study from Environics Analytics and the digital strategy firm Delvinia.

The online study of 23,144 people, being released on Tuesday, measured the frequency of use of 10 social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, podcasts, Wikis, Flickr and LinkedIn, as well as respondents’ comfort level with social media.

According to the Globe and Mail article, “analysts then cross-referenced the findings with a segmentation system that assigns all Canadians into 66 lifestyle types with pithy names such as Back Country Folks, Furs and Philanthropy and Tools and Trucks. They categorized these types into three groups: producers of social media content; followers; and non-users.”

“Unsurprisingly, young, hip urbanites and single city renters are most likely to be playing Farmville, tagging photos and updating their dating status on Facebook. But so are wealthy Chinese families, immigrants of all ages, and young, ethnic singles in urban high-rises.”

“In contrast, followers of social media are older suburbanites with established families, who look at sites to keep abreast of marketplace developments, and new trends, much as they might peer in the window of Holt Renfrew. But they are hesitant about joining in the social media conversation.”

The study appears to confirm what previous polls have already highlighted:

Quebeckers prefer French sites and are playing catch-up in the social media sphere.

“Those who opt out altogether include small-town seniors, farmers, blue-collar workers and risk-averse suburban families. Francophone clusters prefer French sites such as Nuouz, Barrepoint and Glogasty. Many people in Montreal, Quebec City and Winnipeg are laggards.”

Best bad deal

I heard a commentator on CNN this morning refer to online deals for cheap flights as "best bad deals".

It could be the new label for the kind of "marketing to reduced expectations" I wrote about in a previous post:

The airline with the fewest overbooked flights.

The retailer with the fewest out-of-stock items.

The car company with the least recalls.

The Mexican resort with the lowest crime rate.

The software with the least bugs.

The call centre with the shortest wait time.