Recessionary Marketing, Theme #3
Canada’s Emergence as a Marketing Leader
Canada has produced many award-winning marketing strategies recently that are being duplicated else where. Moving forward, Canadian marketers will have an opportunity to be innovative and creative as US markets become increasingly conservative.
Although the Canadian market is relatively mature with slow growth rates, experts believe that the recent economic turmoil created as a result of the global credit crisis will force US marketing departments to act more conservatively, thus giving global brands the opportunity to innovate and lead new marketing initiatives (through testing and metrics) in Canada. For example, BBDO worked with Frito Lay to develop the ‘Doritos Guru’ campaign, which involved the brand working with consumers to generate a name for the new flavour of Doritos as well as product marketing communications for the flavour. This brand-consumer partnership (co-creation) was launched in Canada but is now being used by other brands around the world.
As marketing programs become increasingly complex and integrated, the Canadian marketplace offers brands more simplistic measurement capabilities, compared to the larger population and logistical challenges posed by such a large geographic scope in the US. Canada also has the opportunity to own ‘green marketing’ by creating strong branding/communications models thus getting the attention of the US.
There has been a new found respect for Canada, as one executive in a recent recessionary marketing roundtable stated “we haven’t screwed things up badly”, referring to our relatively strong banking system. Five years ago there was a lot of negativity surrounding ‘Canadian’ branding, but recently there has been a shift. Focus groups conducted by RBC in the US found that American consumers wanted to have the company Canadian-branded.
Overall, American marketers are beginning to understand that there are significant differences that impact consumer behaviour in Canadian and American markets, thus beginning to buy-into the belief that Canadian markets require unique marketing programs.
What are your thoughts on the topic of Canadian marketing leadership?
