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March 2007 - Strategy Magazine
Upfront

Shotgun: how to fire your business partner

by Terry Poulton
page 8

When good business partnerships go wrong, things can get ugly fast. Toronto-based private equity firm Shotgun Fund takes this insight to outrageous levels in a recent B2B campaign featuring a disgruntled businessman wishing harm on his obnoxious partner.

The cheeky "I hate my partner" campaign, by Toronto-based Dentsu Canada, includes newspaper, online and guerrilla efforts, as well as three video executions - "Lick," "Choke" and "Poke" - that have been seeded on YouTube. For the ultimate gesture of disdain, a highly targeted guerrilla effort saw 200 urinal mats reading "Your partner's face goes here" placed in bathrooms at Toronto law and accounting firms, as well as local watering holes.

The YouTube videos got noticed quickly: within a day of being uploaded, ROB-TV booked Shotgun's partners to appear on an episode of Squeeze Play.

While the campaign pokes fun at the idea of business marriages gone sour, it aims to make Shotgun Fund top of mind for businessmen thinking of buying out their partners. Shotgun further played up the "bad marriage" concept with a macabre Valentine's Day street effort by Toronto-based agency C2E Consulting. Street teams handed out nasty Valentine's Day cards and bouquets of dead roses to unsuspecting Torontonians. Shotgun head of marketing Lesley Myers, and Dentsu creative catalyst Glen Hunt, drove the effort.

Print ads are running in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver.

http://ihatemypartner.com/ - With files from AB

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