What Québec Wants™

From Jig-A-Loo to Angelcare and Céline Dion

I'll be your cloud up in the sky

I'll be your shoulder when you cry

I'll hear your voices when you call me

I am your angel

You could add “I’ll be your spokesperson/endorser” to this Céline Dion hit song.

I came across this magazine ad in the most recent issue of magazine Enfants Québec.

Unless it’s a cause she supports, Céline Dion isn’t in the habit of pitching products she doesn’t have a financial interest in. Why would she lend her face to a brand of baby monitors?

The Angelcare website tells the story of its founder Maurice Pinsonnault, a Quebecker and “a new father overwhelmed with the anxiety which all new parents face.”

Maurice Pinsonnault is much more than a concerned father. He’s an investor-entrepreneur. And according to an article published in The Gazette in 2008, he was once the force behind Jig-A-Loo, the now ubiquitous WD-40 alternative.

The Gazette writes “Maurice Pinsonnault bought the company in 2004 from Pierre Hébert, son of Jig-A-Loo's founder and inventor, and sold it in 2006, but not because he saw no future in the firm. Au contraire, he said, "it's a fine product." But proper expansion of the Jig-A-Loo brand would have required a major investment, cash that Pinsonnault needed to develop his core business of baby products.”

Céline Dion is either a huge fan of Angelcare, a personal friend of Maurice Pinsonnault or both.

That’s an angel of an endorsement and more proof that entrepreneurship is alive and well in Québec despite what some studies on the subject may conclude.

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 .