What Québec Wants™

Un bon Jack

 

The expression is used in Québec to refer to a good guy. Guy A. Lepage, host of the popular TV show Tout le monde en parle on SRC, called Jack Layton un bon Jack during his appearance on the show in 2008.

It seems more Quebeckers think this bon Jack deserves their vote this time than Gilles does.

The CROP poll for La Presse had many people talking this week. The NDP is clearly gaining ground in Québec but there’s something a bit odd about the CROP poll when you read the fine print. Blogger Peter Rukavina writes about the methodology. Here’s an excerpt:

If, in fact, this was an actual poll as we were led to believe by the CBC panel, this would indeed be a big deal; it wasn’t until I returned to the topic this morning through an article in the Toronto Star, NDP jumps ahead of Bloc in Quebec: Poll, that I read, way down in the last paragraph:

The survey of 1,000 Quebecers online took place between April 13 and 20. Due to its non-random character, there is no margin of error.

This is echoed in La Presse in its article Le NPD prend la tête au Québec:

Ce sondage mené en ligne ne comporte pas de marge d’erreur compte tenu du caractère non probabiliste de l’échantillon.

In its reporting today the CBC has changed the language from “poll” to “online survey.” For example, in Bloc changes tactics to deal with NDP surge they report:

An online survey done by CROP, which the company said cannot be assigned a margin of error because the methodology doesn’t allow for random sampling, shook up the race in Quebec overnight Thursday, showing a surge for the NDP.

However reliable this poll or online survey of volunteer respondents might be, it’s sure to make the Jack and Gilles show most interesting until May 2nd.

 

 

Wizards, gurus and the truth

Many in Québec’s marketing community were displeased when Quebec City retained the services of Clotaire Rapaille to unlock the city’s “hidden code”. The $300K price tag was part of it. But the fact that the city hired outside the province was also an issue for many.

All this is irrelevant now since Clotaire was sent packing for embellishing his resume. Read this piece in the National Post for the details of this sordid affair.  

In an industry that relies on good storytelling and never seems to hesitate calling its stars marketing “gurus” or advertising “wizards”, Rapaille is hardly the first magician to tell a good story that stretches the truth.

Handshakes at focus groups

If you've ever conducted groups in English Canada and Quebec, you've likely found some interesting differences in consumers' reactions to what you're testing or their views on what you're exploring.

But there's another, perhaps less obvious difference. Quebec respondents seem to genuinely like participating in focus groups.

I moderate focus groups in French and English so I "feel" the room in both markets. In Quebec, there's  almost always one respondent who walks up to me at the end of the session to shake my hand and say thank you. Perhaps it's a thank you for being paid to talk for an hour. Or perhaps it's a thank you for listening to what they had to say. For giving them an opportunity to be heard. While they clearly aren’t there to say what they think you want them to say – and they’ll let you know if they hate the idea - Quebeckers appear to enjoy the conversation more. That’s not to say that participants in English Canada do it only for money.

At a time when having “conversations” with consumers who are questioning their every purchase, Quebeckers seem even more keen than Canadians in English Canada to engage with marketers, even when it’s intermediated by a focus group moderator.