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April 5, 2004 - Strategy Magazine
Special Report: Marketing to Quebec

Join the party
Quebec festival sponsorships can help brands achieve insider status more quickly than ads alone - but they require a little style and sensitivity

by Brendan Christie
page 15

If you think about it, it's actually pretty remarkable that anything gets done in Quebec.

From Gatineau's Wonders of Sand festival each July, to the September Beef Festival in Inverness, to the more familiar Montreal International Jazz Festival, Quebec is rife with hundreds of calendar-clogging events.

And while some surmise that this plethora of parties is a way for Quebecers to come together and preserve their unique heritage, it simply can't be denied that the people of PQ are festival-crazy. Which is why more and more national brands are seeing this long list of events as a way of making meaningful contact with Quebec consumers.

Pascale Chassé, VP and director of Montreal's Fusion Marketing (part of the Cossette group), certainly views them as offering such an opportunity. "For Canadian advertisers," she says, events "are a very good way to get closer to the Quebec target - to be a part of the party."

The obligation to activate

For those wanting to make inroads into La Belle Province, says Chassé, passivity is not an option: "There are so many events, so many sponsorships, it is very difficult to have any sort of impact. You have the obligation to activate your sponsorship. That means communicating your association, activating it on-site and giving participants added value.

"Sponsorship is riskier than advertising, but I think if you want to build a really strong relationship with Quebecers, it is a better direction that just advertising."

Fusion client General Motors of Canada understood that risk when it took a premium sponsorship position at the Montreal International Jazz Festival in 2000, shortly after DuMaurier was required to bow out thanks to new government restrictions on tobacco sponsorship. The festival attracts almost two million people each year, and the majority of those come from within the province. So it's a prime opportunity for GM to make inroads in Quebec.

One of the ways that GM does this is by being part of the "Friends of the Festival" program. For $10, attendees can buy a card that gets them free merchandise and access to the Friends of the Festival tent (sponsored by GM), where they can get bottles of water, chair massages and sun screen. From there, it's off to any of the free concerts GM sponsors - each branded with one of the car manufacturer's sub-brands, like Chevy and Pontiac, depending on the demo the music targets.

Clue in to cultural nuances

Max Lenderman, partner and VP of creative at Gearwerx in Montreal, says brands that take a thoughtful approach to events and offer Quebec consumers real value will be accepted. "You have to tread a very fine line in terms of how you come into it," he notes. "You don't want to come in guns a-blazing, carpetbagging, the whole thing.... You want to be a lot more tactical and strategic.

"I think the bottom line is that you have to know how to speak their language - not just literally but figuratively as well. Because, if you don't, the potential for backlash is great."

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