Very clever this idea to target a particular demographic based on their home territory.
People are territorial, patriotic to not only their country, but also their city or region.
Regions of Canada have been notorious for this for as long as anyone can recall. As united as we are together as a country, our battles within our borders continue – the east coast, the west coast, the prairies, Quebec, Ottawa and Toronto. Every area has a superiority complex. And with good reason – each area is so unique in their environment, culture, language, each has an abundance to be proud of. But with such pride comes the epithets and jokes towards other regions of the country.
Marketers are smart to play up to regional unique qualities. However, does that include jumping on the territorial band-wagon and making fun of other towns or regions in doing so? If in advertising Bell can say they are better that Rogers, then can St. John’s openly claim they are better then Toronto?
Case in point – Coors Light. Coors Light (Molson) is nearing the end of a 16-week campaign in Brish Columbia and finding itself required to remove a series of outdoor signage just 2 weeks before the end of the campaign. The billboards read: “Colder Than Most People From Toronto.”
Apparently reaction was mixed for this campaign, as you can well imagine. But then again, let’s contemplate the negative outcome of this… none. I don’t live in British Columbia or Toronto, yet I stumbled upon 2 articles about this in Ottawa. Not to mention, the billboards were posted for 14 of the 16 weeks. Who knows, maybe 14 weeks was longer then they anticipated for them to last. Perhaps they were counting on us all to be writing articles and blogging away about this campaign. Suddenly a small geographically targeted outdoor campaign gets national, even international coverage. Bravo.
That being said, there is still the matter that this was an insulting slur against residents of Toronto. Going back to the comparison of Rogers vs. Bell, those are brands that are attacking one another. Offending a brand is one thing, offending a culture is another. Let’s leave that to Geiko offending the caveman population.
Did Molson go to far? Should they have offended Torontonians to appeal to the west coast? Or was it all just a ploy to get me to write this article?
Read more about this in Marketing Magazine.
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