What Québec Wants™

Nutrition Inc. - Under the influence of Christine Avanti and Isabelle Huot.

Meet celebrity nutritionist Christine Avanti.

She’s everywhere - including a show on the Food Network and a book titled “SKINNY CHICKS EAT REAL FOOD”.

She’s quintessential Hollywood.

Her profile states that she is a classically trained French chef, Certified Nutritionist, Media Spokesperson, TV Persona and Co-Host on Food Network’s show Fat Chef. She has been Hollywood’s go-to nutrition/culinary expert for celebrities such as Jeremy Piven, Audrina Patridge, Giuliana Rancic, Johnny Galecki, Paula Abdul, Rich Sommer, Jason Statham, Samantha Harris, Chelsea Handler, Henry Winkler, Kym Johnson, Steven Segal and Marcus Allen. Christine has counseled more than a thousand clients one-on-one in her private nutrition and fitness coaching practice located in New York City and Los Angeles, who have collectively lost more than 10,000 pounds.

Christine has shared her nutrition and culinary advice on the Today Show, Dancing with the Stars, Rachael Ray, The Doctors, Good Morning America, Oprah’s All Stars and dozens of others. Her insights can be found in magazines such as Vogue, W, New Beauty, Women’s Health, US Weekly, Health, Fitness, InStyle and many others. 

 She also recently endorsed The Skinny Vine launched in the US in January by Treasury Wine Estates, the Australian company behind Penfolds, Lindeman’s and Rosemount Estate. Yes. It’s wine for the calorie conscious.

According to an article by Peppi Crosariol in the Globe and Mail:

The Skinny Vine has shipments already exceeding 100,000 cases, the three wines – Slim Chardonnay, Thin Zin and Mini Moscato – weigh in at just 7.3– to 8.5-per-cent alcohol and 86 to 95 calories per five-ounce glass. That compares with an average of between 120 and 141 calories for comparable varietals made in California.

 

As expected, Christine’s visibility is enhanced by her extensive use of social networks. The day Peppi wrote about her endorsement of The Skinny Vine in the Globe, Christine tweeted “Got a great #shoutout today in The Globe! Many Thx @Beppi_Crosariol.

And on it goes...

 

Meet Dr. Isabelle Huot - Québec's version of Christine Avanti.

They share looks, a knack for getting exposure and a very smart business sense.

Isabelle Huot holds a PhD in Nutrition. One would think she also holds one in marketing with a specialty in personal branding.

I met her several years ago when she was a nutrition advisor for one of our clients and later became a spokesperson. Back then, she already had a binder full of press clippings to impress me during contract negotiations. There’s clearly no need for that binder anymore.

She is a successful entrepreneur who knows the importance of carefully cultivating her brand and generating visibility. The woman is everywhere in Québec.

She's on television. She is a regular contributor to TVA’s Salut Bonjour morning show. Québec’s version of The Today Show.

Salut Bonjour - TVA's morning show

She's in book stores. She has published six books with Les Éditions de l’homme (a division of Québecor Média)

One of six books published by Dr. Isabelle Huot

She's in advertising. She is the spokesperson for Québec commercial bakery St-Méthode. She appears in television advertising and her conseilsnutrition.tv advice is available via the bakery’s website.

 

She's on the web - in every way. Her ConseilsNutrition.tv website is classic content integration connecting the dots between the books, recipes, and online videos. It links to her website which goes a step further with a link to Kilo Solution, her nutrition and weight loss clinics.

Nutritional advice via web videos and other content

She's on cruise ships. Meet the doctor aboard a Royal Caribberan cruise ship. She’ll deliver conference themed “Nutrition at the heart of health”.

An invitation to hear her talk about nutrition while cruising the Caribbean

She’s on TVA’s Shopping Channel. Where she sells her line of food as part of her weight loss program.

 

She's on the radio. She has a regular segment on Rythme 105.7 FM in Montreal.

A radio commentator

She's in newspapers. She has a weekly column in Le Journal de Montréal (another Québecor Media property) where she delivers advice and she pitches her line of food. Why not treat promotion as news, if you can?

A weekly column

"News' reports

Or she reviews and recommends food products. Why not use that influence, if you can? 

Reviewing and recommending products

She's in magazines. She is regularly featured on magazine covers.

Celebrity treatment on magazine covers

She’s on Twitter and Facebook. And she’s active. 

Twitter & Facebook to engage and extend her reach

What’s missing?

Wine. I bet it won’t take long for the über nutritionist to start pitching it.

Cheers to that.

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Here's a related findings from our What Québec Wants syndicated study:

Agreement with the statement "I am confused about how to eat a healthy diet": 35% of French Quebeckers compared to 25% of Canadians in the rest of the country.

Dr. Huot still has her work cut out.

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Not big on conversation

This blog is almost two years old, has 238 posts, had 19314 lifetime pageviews and a fair amount of comments.

The post that generated the most visits?

A post entitled ‘Playing computer games in the nude.’ The referring site most often responsible for taking visitors to this post was Google Images.

Either my other posts are not as arousing and won't ignite conversations or I should somehow embed the word ‘nude’ in each title.

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Talking about limited conversations, there's an interesting admission by Harry Rosen's Sandra Kennedy in the Globe and Mail today. Remember the 'new confidence' campaign for the retailer featuring, among others, Robert Deluce and Rob Guenette? It seems only about 1,000 people had visited the blog by the end of the campaign. I guess the word 'nude' didn't fit the strategy.

It’s about the bike: when fake friends create buzz.

It was only a matter of time before fake bloggers and fake friends on Facebook became a marketer’s tool.

The story goes like this: three Montrealers create a blog about cycling. They met because of a shared passion – riding their bike – and chose to write to promote bikes as the main mode of transportation in Montreal. Mélanie Gomez, Jean-Michel Simoneau and Pénélope Riopelle wrote often and well about their passion on their blog: “à vélo citoyen” (On your bike citizens).

To promote their blog, they created a Facebook page. 1300 friends signed up.

Their blog was so popular that in July 2008 it got an exclusive from a good source; a photo of the prototype of the new Bixi, the self-serve bicycle sponsored by the City of Montreal (being officially launched today). A few days later, the City of Montreal confirmed on the blog that this was in fact the prototype.

Great buzz for the city. But also a great controversy since we now know that Mélanie, Jean-Michel and Pénélope do not exist. They’re the creation of Montreal Parking and its agency Morrow Communications.

Some are quite upset over this. Get over it. And make sure you collect real friends on Facebook or accept the social network for what it has become; a public marketing tool where people continue to share their private lives.