The folks at Rogers Publishing call it MacLac. The term was coined to refer to the publisher’s two current affairs magazines Maclean’s and L’Actualité. While the two magazines have little in common, they’re sometimes promoted together to advertisers running ad campaigns in English and French.
It now looks like MacLac is about to pay great dividends for Rogers Publishing in another way. Here’s the strategy:
- Maclean’s publishes a controversial story about Québec being the most corrupt province in Canada.
The cover image of Bonhomme ensures that the story doesn’t go unnoticed and gets reproduced in newspapers and online.
- Politicians of every stripe and the media keep the story going. Copies of Maclean’s fly off the shelf in Québec.
- (September 27) Carole Beaulieu, the Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of L’Actualité, publishes a “reaction” on her magazine’s website.
- (September 30) Jean-François Lisée, a regular contributor to the magazine, publishes a blog post (in English) on L’Actualité’s website entitled “Bonhomme strikes back”.
- (September 30) Rogers Publishing issues a press release to comment. The release states that “Québec is an important market for the company and we look forward to participating in the dynamic growth of the province and its citizens."
That’s what we know so far about the MacLac strategy currently being implemented.
Here’s what we should expect next if everything goes according to plan.
- L’Actualité will publish an extensive story on the corruption/bonhomme story in its next issue.
The cover image will likely also use Bonhomme in some way (albeit in a more respectful way). The illustration by André-Philippe Côté accompanying J-F Lisée’s piece online might be the one. More media coverage will ensue.
That’ll keep us chatting for a while longer about corruption. Most of all, it will have taken the MacLac strategy to a whole new level.
You can’t buy that kind of visibility.
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