What Québec Wants™

Tim might be changing but Quebeckers remain faithful.

Canadians are apparently mad as hell at Tim Hortons. The brand is taking a beating according to recent reputation studies by Léger-National and Ipsos Canada. Commentators are claiming the brand is in trouble and has lost its connection with the Canadian public. Professor Sylvain Charlebois, in a recent Globe and Mail article, argues that Canadians have been keeping tab on how "RBI's ultimate commitment has been to its shareholders and not necessarily to the Canadian public". He adds that the dramatic drop in brand reputation confirms that the "transformation into a foreign company is now complete".

Corporate reputation, as measured by Léger, is a function of perceived financial success, CSR, honesty and transparency, quality of products and services and innovation. As one would expect, the key driver of reputation in the foodservice sector is the quality of products and services. A survey released this week by the Angus Reid Institute offers a closer look at what is going on with this driver and other key components of Tim Hortons' brand equity. It reveals that the iconic Canadian brand is, so far, healthiest in Québec.

Despite its reputational hit, Tim Hortons remains a cult brand with a strong following across Canada. Six-in-ten (62%) Canadians still regularly patronize its restaurants. Almost the same number of Quebeckers do so (57%).

The chain is viewed as an important part of Canadian culture. Seven-in-ten (70%) Canadians say that Tim Hortons plays a part when they think of Canadian culture. In Quebec, 68% says so, with a higher percentage saying it plays an "important" part.

Slightly more than one-in-two (54%) Canadians hold a favourable opinion of Tim Hortons compared to 59% in Québec where only 17% hold an unfavourable view compared to 25% nationally.

On all key measures of brand equity related to quality and service, the brand appears stronger in Québec. Compared to Canadians in the rest-of-Canada, Quebeckers are more likely to say the quality of the food and the coffee has improved or stayed the same. The same is true of their perception of the service and prices.

I don't have access to trended data on these brand metrics. There might also be troubling signs in Québec as well but having roughly 85% of the population believing the quality of your food and coffee has either improved or stayed the same should feel pretty good. There is, of course, always room for improvement. One-in-ten in Québec believe the quality of the food at Tim Hortons has worsened but the same percentage of Quebeckers believe the food quality at rival Starbucks has declined.

These regional differences can be attributed in part to the more limited media coverage of the protests we saw in English Canada over the treatment of workers after the minium wage was increased in Ontario and the very public dispute with franchisees. It could well be that it's only a matter of time before Quebeckers join the rest of Canada in believing that Tim Hortons is not the same as it was. But there are lessons to be learned from this regional difference. Lessons that could help RBI devise strategies to insulate the Tim Hortons brand in Québec.

When it entered the Quebec market, Tim Hortons was a "foreign company" from Ontario.

Back then, Dunkin Donut felt more local than Tim Hortons. The coffee and donut chain suffered greatly in Québec after Tim Hortons' arrival. It took a 13-year battle for former franchisees in Québec to win their case. The franchisees had sued the company for failing to live up to its obligation to promote the U.S. donut chain's brand in Québec as it faced growing competition from Tim Hortons. The ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada in March 2016 forced Dunkin' Brands Canada Ltd. to pay the 21 former operators of 32 locations in the province nearly $18 million, including interest and legal costs. Today, there are only three locations in Québec.

Tim Hortons did many things right to endear itself to Quebeckers. One of the earliest and most visible was its name change.

Tim Horton's became Tim Hortons. The company removed the apostrophe after signs using the apostrophe were interpreted by some to be breaking the language sign laws of the Province of Québec in 1993. The change demonstrated good corporate citizenship and was a smart business decision ensuring efficiencies by using a standard name across the chain.

Tim Hortons made significant efforts to localize its brand story for Québec.

Here's an example. Back in December 2010, Tim Hortons released its festive holiday mugs. There were two versions. The Québec mugs had the maple leaf replaced by a snowflake and the CN Tower was removed. Some will say this was unnecessary and even ridiculous. It nevertheless demonstrated Tim Hortons' concern for regional differences and its willingness to adapt its messaging accordingly.

Over the years, Tim Hortons invested in localized advertising, often going beyond the French adaptation of its English campaigns. Perhaps the most memorable example of homegrown Tim Hortons advertising in Québec was the "Minou et Pitou" campaign which focused on two characters, Minou and Pitou, using two well-known Québec actors, Patrick Labbé and Elyse Marquis, in the title roles. It's fair to say that they made the brand a household name.

 

A local brand experience where one feels at home.

Ten years ago, I spent two days working at a Tim Hortons restaurant in Mascouche, Québec as part of a project for the coffee chain. I got to experience first hand what it's like to work behind the counter and, more importantly, I got to observe and interview customers.

As I changed the coffee pot every twenty minutes for a fresh one, I saw proof of the chain's "Always Fresh" promise. I also witnessed how the chain was "Always Inviting". If there ever were moments of truth that made Tim Hortons a unique destination for these patrons, they were the result of the convivial atmosphere and the sense of community and place. Going to Tim Hortons, a place where people knew your name, brought these people closer to their community. What the homegrown advertising in Quebec captured was not made-up. It was experienced every day in small towns across the province. Breakfast with toasts and "cretons" (a forcemeat-style pork spread containing onions and spices) and the clever naming of products like the Timatin breakfast sandwich made Quebeckers feel even more at home.

The Tim Hortons brand might be losing share of heart in English Canada but, if it learns from its past in Québec and recommits to that market, Quebeckers will continue to reward it with their true patriot love.

Quebeckers in the grocery aisle

In an article recently published in Canadian Grocer's newsletter, Marc Inkol of Explorer Group, a Mississauga, Ont.-based shopper consulting company, revealed "the hidden ways people go through stores".

We thought we'd add a Québec perspective to some of Inkol's findings.

Grocery shopping is tiring. A shopping trip that covers all aisles of a large-format grocery store results in the shopper covering a half-mile. That’s a lot of walking. Given this, shoppers will typically not go back for missed items. All product sampling should be conducted in close proximity to a product’s permanent shelf location.

Shoppers typically don’t enjoy grocery shopping. It is a task-driven exercise, with shoppers following the same pattern on each trip. In many regards, shoppers function on autopilot. So getting them to change their shopping patterns is difficult.

Findings from our What Québec Wants survey of 3,000 Canadians in 2014 revealed that half of all Canadians (51.6%) say they "really enjoy grocery shopping". That number increases to 57.2% among residents of Québec. There are also significant differences among age groups between Québec and the RoC; 58% of Quebeckers between the ages of 58 and 67 say they really enjoy grocery shopping compared to 44% of Canadians of the same ages in the RoC. The differences are even more marked among younger grocery shoppers as 72% of Quebeckers 18-24 really enjoy grocery shopping compared to 50% of Canadians 18-24 in the RoC.

Sixty per cent of grocery shopping trips are quick trips lasting less than five minutes. Usually only one to three items is typically purchased at a time.

Quebeckers likely spend more time in the store. They are less likely to say they are willing to pay a little extra to save time shopping (19% in Québec compared to 28% in the RoC according to PMB 2015 survey data).

For many, grocery shopping is similar to driving to and from work; people remember leaving home and arriving at work, but not too much about what happened along the way. Retailers will notice this behaviour most when store sections or aisles are changed. Shoppers find such changes disruptive for an extended period of time because it forces a change in their shopping “routine.”

Product categories that are more difficult to navigate or shop should never be placed in the front or back six feet of an aisle. That’s because this area is a “transition zone” where a stopped shopper is likely to get bumped by another shopper entering the aisle.

Getting people to walk down aisles isn’t easy. The average aisle penetration per trip in a grocery store is only 20% to 30%.

People like “choice” as a concept but have trouble managing it as they shop. The average family shops for only 300 different items in a grocery store annually yet many supermarkets have upwards of 45,000 SKUs. Choice and variety do not cut through the clutter. That’s why many new product introductions don’t get noticed. The solution: set up “discovery zones” to highlight and promote all new items in one place.

Shoppers are more likely to shop for impulse and indulgent items in the last one-third of their shopping trip. They don’t typically purchase these items early in their trip when they’re more concerned about restocking regular items.

Findings from our What Québec Wants survey revealed that Quebeckers are significantly more likely to 'always use a list when grocery shopping' (67% of Quebeckers compared to 61% of Canadians in the RoC). This might explains why they are less likely to buy on impulse (37% of Quebeckers say they make impulse purchases when grocery shopping compared to 48% of Canadians in the RoC). It's also no surprise that Quebeckers are more likely to 'plan meals for the week'  (41% of Quebeckers compared to 34% of Canadians in the RoC).

Wanted: clueless cooks in Québec

You might be familiar with the television show Chef in Your Ear on the Food Network - the reality competition series in which chefs vie to see which of them is able to coach a completely clueless cook through preparing a restaurant-quality dish without setting foot in the kitchen with the newbie. The chefs watch the rookie on a monitor from a remote booth and communicate instructions only via an earpiece.

A similar concept was adapted for a French-speaking audience in Québec. The show is called Un chef à l'oreille and airs on Friday evenings on Radio-Canada.

The format is essentially the same featuring Ricardo Larivée as the host and guests chefs including Martin Juneau.

The show's premise is that "delicious fun happens when two extremes come together: talented chefs and kitchen rookies". Clueless cooks keep viewers watching as much as, if not more than, learning serious cooking skills from top chefs.

It might do just fine in Québec but the show's producers might face a different challenge in Québec.

Quebeckers are likely not as clueless in the kitchen.

According to findings from our What Québec Wants study in 2014, French-speaking Quebeckers are more likely to agree with the following statements than English-speaking Canadians in the ROC, and also, in most cases, than  English-speaking Quebeckers.

French-speaking Quebeckers might find that having a chef whisper in their ears is just a nuisance.

 

 

Make nutritional information simple when marketing food products in Québec.

Canadian Grocer Magazine’s November 2015 issue is announcing the death of artificial ingredients.

The article quotes Emma Eriksson, marketing director of snacks at General Mills Canada:

“[For General Mills], it’s all about listening to our consumers and making sure we stay in sync with what they want in their food. No artificial colours and flavours is something they are looking for in their cereals, and it’s one of the top nutritional claims they’re looking for when they’re buying food overall.”

Today, roughly 60% of General Mills’ cereals are made without artificial flavours or colours, including Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The company is aiming for 75% by this January, including Reese’s Puffs and Trix; and 90% by the end of 2016.

Cutting out artificial colours, flavours and other chemical-sounding names from their food is expected from CPG companies. However, in Québec, the move should come with simpler, more easily accessible information about how to eat a healthy diet.

Findings from our firm’s What Québec Wants study conducted in 2014 revealed that one in three Quebeckers (35%) were confused about how to eat a healthy diet compared to only one in four in the rest-of-Canada (24.8%).

When asked how often they typically read the list of ingredients, the nutritional and calorie information or the presence or absence of artificial ingredients such as preservatives, colours or flavours, Quebeckers are significantly less likely than Canadian in the ROC to say they do so.

Our survey also uncovered part of the reason: Quebeckers are more likely to say they find it difficult to understand the nutrition terms on food labels.

Smart marketers should turn this problem into an opportunity to build a competitive edge by making it easier for Quebeckers to sort out this nutritional puzzle.

Halloween in Québec

Only 46 per cent of Quebecers plan to give out candy this Halloween, less than any other province.

It's been six years since Halloween has fallen on a Saturday, and according to a new survey from digital offers site RetailMeNot.ca, 64 per cent of Canadians are planning to hand out candy this year, compared to only 50 per cent in 2014.  

Candy isn't just for the kids, though. Half the country (51 per cent) plans to buy candy for themselves, and 72 per cent are looking to buy more candy than they need so they can chow down on leftovers. 73 per cent of parents admit they have taken candy from a child...

Canadians expect to spend an average of $169 on Halloween.

About the survey:

From October 5 to October 7, 2015, an online survey was conducted among 3,024 randomly selected Canadian adults who are Angus Reid Forum panelists. The margin of error, which measures sampling variability, is +/- 1.8%, 19 times out of 20. The results have been statistically weighted according to education, age, gender and region (and in Quebec, language) Census data to ensure a sample representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding.

It’s a cultural thing. Quebeckers' love affair with Tintin.

“It's a cultural thing: A strong opening in France has Paramount Pictures debuting Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson's animated movie in the French-speaking Canadian province.”

That’s how the Hollywood Reporter announced back in 2011 the studio’s decision to hold the North American theatrical debut of ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ in Québec after having opened strongly in France and elsewhere in Europe.

It did not do very well in the US and the ROC although a sequel is apparently in the works.

Tintin and Quebeckers

Quebeckers’ love affair with Tintin is getting a boost this week with the release of the documentary ‘Au Québec avec Tintin” inspired by the book ‘Tintin et le Québec’ by Tristan Demers published in 2010. The documentary airing today on Télé-Québec takes a look at Tintin’s cultural and social impact in Québec through interviews with several Québec celebrities who were influenced by the character.

Tintin Little Treasures - puffed rice with caramel flavour

The documentary also reveals a little known-fact about Tintin; Quaker Oats introduced Tintin breakfast cereals in 1966. The brand was sold only in Québec and, according to an article in Le Magazine Maclean in March 1966 (yes, it was published in French back then before it was folded in L'actualité in 1976) the packaging was in French only when it was launched.

Much has changed over the past 50 years.

One major change that would have made Tintin’s adventure into sweetened breakfast cereals more challenging is Québec’s ban on advertising to children in 1980.

If the product advertised is consumed primarily by children and the advertisement uses fantasy, magic, or child-specific adventures, it cannot be aired during programming where more than 15% of the audience is children.

A study by Goldberg (1990) suggested that after its enactment in 1980, the Québec ban served to reduce children’s exposure to television commercials for sweetened cereals and consequently reduced children’s consumption of these products. Even though children were still exposed to American commercials, only the English-speaking Canadian children could recognize and were more aware of products that were advertised, such as toys and sweetened breakfast cereals, and had more of these in their homes than did French-speaking Canadian children. The French-speaking children were also less likely to urge their parents to purchase the advertised products.

Source: Goldberg ME. 1990 A quasi-experiment assessing the effectiveness of TV advertising directed at children. Journal of Marketing Research 27(4):445-454

 

 

Québec’s liquor board looking to sell spirits in grocery stores.

Montréal’s La Presse is reporting today that the SAQ is exploring the feasibility of setting up shops in Québec grocery stores to sell champagne, vodka, rhum, and other spirits. The 1,500 sq.ft. space, which might be a stretch for retailers to accommodate, would offer between 400 and 500 products.

According to La Presse, the idea for this pilot project came from the Québec City suburb of Ancienne-Lorette where an SAQ branch had to be closed for renovation. The branch was temporary relocated in a nearby Loblaws store. Satisfaction rates reached 86% and traffic in that store increased. While representatives from the SAQ had much to say about their plan, those from Metro, IGA and Loblaws were more circumspect.

 

Kraft Dinner’s Québec campaign. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

Each year the APCM (Québec’s association of marketing-communications professionals) recognizes the best marketing-communication strategies. This year, the Grand Prix winner is Kraft Dinner.

While the brand is also a symbol of popular culture in Québec, it had not been advertised in the province for the past ten years and sales were declining. Kraft and its agency, Taxi, developed a strategy and campaign to drive volume.

On the surface, Kraft Dinner is a tough sell in Québec. Quebeckers are passionate about food. In fact, our What Québec Wants study reveals that significantly more Quebeckers than Canadians in the ROC believe they have more discerning tastes in foods than most (40% in Québec compared to 28% in the ROC). They love to cook and are proud of the meals they prepare.

Rather than attempt to overcome negative perceptions of the brand as being over processed, the strategy leveraged a simple truth: despite its image, most Quebeckers like Kraft Dinner but they are embarrassed to say so and often feel guilty eating it.

This insight was dramatized in a cleverly executed integrated campaign.

Out-of-home posters showed consumers one would not expect to eat Kraft Dinner. Their identity was partly hidden by a box of Kraft Dinner. Among them was Dany Turcotte, the well-known co-host of the top rated talk show Tout le monde en parle. Product placement gave this campaign a major boost when Turcotte was presented with a bowl of KD during the show.

On television, a man is seen eating Kraft Dinner. He then switches his recycling bin containing the empty box of KD with his neighbour’s bin.

 

A transit shelter poster was fitted to distribute boxes of the product. You can see it in action via this short video presentation of the case (in French).

The campaign was meant to not only stop the declining sales but also increase them by 15% before the end of 2013. In three months, sales increased by 17.2%

Québécois are getting fatter, faster.

Québec and British Columbia continue to be the provinces with the highest percentage of their population within the “normal” BMI range.

Many find this puzzling given Quebeckers’ laissez-faire attitude towards food.

When we asked 3,000 Canadians last year about their agreement with the statement “I can eat whatever I want with little concern about my health”, significantly more Quebeckers agreed (32.8%) than Canadians in the RoC (27.5%).

It’s as puzzling as the French paradox.

Unfortunately, the puzzle is being gradually solved as this attitude appears to be catching up.

According to new research published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, not only have obesity rates in Canada tripled since 1985, Québec saw the biggest regional increase in obesity levels; from 12.7% in 2000/01 to 16.8% in 2011, a 32.3% increase.

Quebeckers’ Chinese obsession

This IGA store’s aisle sign lists “fondue broth” between hot dog buns and chewy bars.

And the end aisle shelf is packed with various flavours of broth from Canton and Loney’s as well as a variety of dipping sauces. Quebeckers love their “fondue Chinoise” - a kind of French-style hot pot; thinly sliced meat cooked in a beef broth, seasoned with onions, herbs, and occasionally some wine as well.

It makes for a highly sociable meal and can take a couple of hours to fully enjoy. And it drives significantly higher usage of broth in Québec.

According to PMB 2013 data, 54.9% of households in Québec bought bouillon in the past six months compared to 29.1% in the RoC.

The sauces are used for fondue and raclette - the Swiss dish