What Québec Wants™

Québec is leaking

Until now, leaks in Québec were essentially the business of Qualinet. The ‘undisputed leader in water damage restoration’ is an unavoidable part of the advertising landscape in Québec. At times, it seems as if Qualinet has booked every outdoor poster in the province. It's a franchise operation therefore its advertising is likely also aimed at potential franchisees in every corner of the province.

Starting next week, Quebeckers will be treated to a different kind of leakage. The type that gets people in hot water (excuse the pun).

QuébecLeaks, modeled after WikiLeaks, is expected to go live on February 16^th. According to its yet to be revealed spokesperson, the anonymous site will aim to “reduce (actually eliminate) corruption by establishing systems offering full transparency” [« Il est évident que l’objectif est la diminution (lire la disparition) de la corruption (...) par l’instauration de systèmes offrant une transparence complète » – QuébecLeaks.]

QuébecLeaks will no doubt make for fascinating reading. But please, don’t see this as a sign that Québec is indeed the most corrupt province in Canada. It just leaks a lot and loves gossip.

Gossip was, and remains, one of Jacques Bouchard’s 36 keys of Quebeckers. The updated edition says this about gossip (Key #11: le potinage): In Québec, everything is eventually known to all: stones talk and walls have ears. And gossip might even lead to lying: a Léger Marketing survey suggests that Quebeckers are slightly less likely to lie than Canadians in the RoC in order to protect someone else, and more likely when protecting themselves.

 

http://www.headspacemarketing.com/pdfs/knowledge_36keys.pdf

 

Les partys de Noël de bureau au Québec | Office Christmas parties in Québec

Social Networks in Québec - The Top Ten

Here's an interesting look at the usage of social network in Quebec and for total Canada (according to ComScore Media Metrix Canada - three months average ending April 2010)

Social Network - % of internet users reached - average time spent on the site (in minutes each month) - average number of pages viewed (each month)

Facebook.com

• #1 Quebec: 83% - 357.2 - 689
• #1 Canada: 83% - 417.8 - 754

Windows Live Profil

• #2 Quebec: 42% - 6.1 - 13
• #2 Canada: 31$ - 4.8 - 11

Skyrock

• #3 Quebec: 16% - 24.6 - 47
• #8 Canada: 5% - 24.1 - 45

MySpace

• #3 Quebec: 12% - 11.9 - 26
• #4 Canada: 11% - 12.7 - 28

Twitter.com

• #5 Quebec: 11% - 14.8 - 23
• #3 Canada: 13% - 17.0 - 26

Linkedin.com

• #6 Quebec: 9% - 8.9 - 18
• #5 Canada: 10% - 11.8 - 26

Deviantart.com

• #7 Quebec: 6% - 8.7 - 18
• #6 Canada: 7% - 19.1 - 32

Badoo.com

• #8 Quebec: 6% - 141.7 - 184
• Not in top ten in Canada

Netlog.com

• #9 Quebec: 5% - 39.0 - 78
• Not in top ten in Canada

Addthis.com

• #10 Quebec: 4% - 2.2 - 3
• #10 Canada: 4% - 1.7 - 3

The curious case of Nutella fans

Facebook Fan Pages are a telling sign of what’s popular. And the January 2010 statistics reveal the expected and the unexpected.

Michael Jackson leads the top 30 with 10,551,163 fans. Vin Diesel, Barack Obama follow. On the branded front (not that Michael Jackson isn’t a brand), Starbucks still leads with 5,331,423 fans. Coca-Cola is next with 4,103,026. Then Skittles with 3,555,983 fans.

Ranked #25 is Nutella. The hazelnut spread is apparently causing millions of Facebook users to join in the conversation.

As buzz.io writes “it’s safe to assume that most of the fans are from Europe but the craziest thing about Nutella’s high ranking is that it doesn’t advertise. Well, that’s not true; they spent $300,000 on media last year, which is pretty much equivalent to nothing. Here’s the impressive part: their Facebook page was created by a fan, Nutella has 5 million Google search results, there are 5,000 videos on Youtube featuring Nutella, and there are 17,000 photos featuring Nutella on Flickr.”

Why?

As ThreeMinds suggests ‘nobody really knows’.

Possible Reasons

Social media buzz experts credit Nutella's Facebook popularity to these characteristics:

1. It's European and people think Nutella is cool.

2. It reminds people of memories/trips to Europe.

3. It has such a unique taste. And oh yeah, it's too good to be true.

Then there’s World Nutella Day. The disclaimer says “nutelladay.com does not represent official views or opinions of Ferrero, S.p.A.”.

It seems to me that this what social media is all about when it comes to creating true conversations about brands among its fans. It starts with its fans. And there are serious Nutella fans in Québec.

Quebeckers and Nutella

We do not have sales data for Nutella in Québec nor do we have data on Nutella Facebook fans in Québec. However, it’s clear Quebeckers are huge fans of the stuff. 

According to PMB 2009, Quebeckers are significantly more likely to consume nut-based spreads. There are proportionally more heavy users of peanut butter in Québec. But the difference in reported consumption of hazelnut spread is striking. 8% of Canadians outside Québec used a hazelnut spread in the last month compared to a 21% of Quebeckers. So now you know where the Nutella fans are in Canada.

Self-expression as a new form of entertainment

I had the opportunity to listen to a talk by Arianna Huffington yesterday. The co-founder of the Huffington Post was in Toronto to give a speech to the communications industry as part of Advertising Week.  

She had much to say in her speech and in interviews about ‘The Brave New World of the New Media” including about what she calls the ‘linked economy’. Here’s an excerpt from an item in the Toronto Star - ironically the lead sponsor of her talk:

The site has raised $30 million (U.S.) in two rounds of financing, the most recent by venture capital firm that valued the site at $100 million.

All this while many traditional U.S. newspapers are struggling with the challenge of new media made worse by an economic downturn that saw advertising dollars shrink.

At least some of that could also be due to sites like The Huffington Post, which freely borrows content from mainstream media sites to enhance their coverage. Huffington calls it the "linked economy. We link to others, they link to us and that's how we see the future."

Self-expression as a new form of entertainment

Huffington asserted that everything from user generated content, to citizen journalism, to blogging, and social networking has become a new form of entertainment.

I guess that's really why I’ve been blogging for the past two years. I just want to have fun.

Disconnect to recharge

She repeatedly encouraged her audience to turn wireless devices off at the end of the day to recharge and get some sleep in order to make the most of what technology enables us to achieve.

I’m going for a nap.

Few small businesses using Facebook.

Findings from a Citibank/GFK Roper survey of 500 U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees reveals that very few small businesses in the U.S. have adopted social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter for business uses.

76% of the small business owners surveyed say they have not found sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads or expanding business in the past year.

86% say they have not used social networking sites for information or business advice. Instead, 61% of respondents say they general search engine sites such as Google and Yahoo! to seek business advice or information.

42% percent of small business owners and managers reported that in the past year they have made greater use of their company's website to generate business leads and sales. Among companies with 20 to 99 employees the percentage rises with 57 percent saying they have made greater use of their website.

Survey respondents are also using email marketing (28 percent) and online advertising (25 percent) to generate business leads and sales.

Here’s a link to Citibank’s press release.

Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives

Here's a most interesting segmentation according to people's degree of participation in social technology.

Forrester's Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation.

It's refreshing to read this from Forrester:

Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a community there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.

Here's the tool to build various profiles by country. I was hoping for data from Quebec... Too bad Canada isn't even listed. Click on the pulsing 'build profile now'.

Deeply engaged vs just being there

I wrote in a previous post that I did not wish to be ‘engaged’ with my hamburger. My point was that not all marketed goods and services are on an equal footing when it comes to leveraging social media to engage in conversations with customers.

Now a study by Wetpaint / Altimeter Group suggests that engagement differs by industry. From the study report:

Not only are some industries on average more present in more channels, they also engage with them more deeply. For example, media and technology companies tend to be in more channels and engage deeply within them. In contrast, apparel, consumer products, food & beverage, and financial brands in general don’t engage as much — which is to be expected given that companies in these industries are just beginning to experiment with social media. But even within industries, there is a wide spectrum of engagement. In the auto sector, some brands like Toyota are highly engaged in many channels, especially around the Prius. In contrast, luxury brands Mercedes Benz and Porsche are in just two channels each. In other words, distinct target audiences can influence the appropriate level of social media engagement even within specified industries.

 

At a time when social media is on every marketer’s agenda, this study offers what the authors claim is the first ever measure of the true financial value of social media.

The conclusion:

The most valuable brands in the world (based on Interbrand’s ranking) are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.

Being ‘social’ is more than being there.

The study’s author add an important caveat to their findings:

So now we know it pays to be social, but it is important to note that by “social,” we’re talking about deep engagement, not merely having a presence. And what exactly do we mean by deep social engagement? Resembling any in-person exchange, socializing requires more than just being there — you have to interact with others, instigate discussions, and respond during conversations. Our study implies value in social engagement on top of social presence — it pays to actively and continually participate and invest in your networks.

The full report can be downloaded here. The four engagement profiles (Mavens, Butterflies, Selectives, and Wallflowers) are particularly interesting.

Twitter: 41% pointless babble

U.S. marketing company Pear Analytics split 2,000 tweets into six general categories.

Pointless babble 40.55%
Conversational 37.55%
Spam 3.75%
Self-promotional 5.85%
Pass along value 8.70%
News 3.60%

Read more about it in today's Globe & Mail.

Read our 'pass along value' tweets on Twitter

Two views of Twitter

A follow-up to my previous post on Twitter in Québec.

Brandweek published the findings from a study conducted by LinkdedIn Research network/Harris Poll.

The survey shows that while the advertising world is gaga over Twitter, the general public is in relative darkness about it.