Québec

What is the Article About?

• This article is about Tim Hortons brand reputation crumbling everywhere else in Canada except in Québec where Tim Hortons reputation remains the same or better to some people.
• The reason for this seems to be the fact that Tim Hortons markets to Québec like a Québec company would.

What is this article About?

• For example, Tim Hortons released their festive holiday mug and they were the same all across Canada, except for Québec where they changed the design to make it appeal to the Québec consumers. This showed Tim Hortons' concern for regional differences and its willingness to adapt its messaging accordingly and is why Quebeckers are still liking Tim Hortons.

How is Québec Unique in this Article?

• While the rest of Canada, especially the English speaking parts, were starting to band against Tim Hortons and ruin its brand reputation as it was mistreating its employees, Québec was not affected by this growing uneasy and distrust toward the brand.

How is Québec Unique in this Article?

• Also, Tim Hortons markets separately and more carefully by portraying themselves as a Québec brand rather that a Canadian one. For example, changing their products to better suit the Quebeckers whereas in the rest of Canada they don't do this.

How is Québec Unique in this Article?

• They have invested in more localized advertising in Québec than in any other province going as far as adapting there English campaigns to French and changing the actors to ones more recognizable in Québec.

How does the rest of Canada View this Issue?

• The rest of Canada especially the other English speaking parts view Tim Hortons more negatively due to the worse treatment of workers after the minimum wage was increased in Ontario. Tim Hortons slashed benefits and removed shift premiums for employees. Which is wrong, and other Canadians see that and are tarnishing Tim Hortons' brand image because of that.

How Can Marketers use this article?

• Marketers can copy and modify the strategies that Tim Hortons used and not repeat the same mistakes. One strategy that was particularly effective was the changing of products to further suit the Quebeckers needs, this says to the consumer base that you care and are willing to change your products to keep them happy.

How Can Marketers use this article?

• For example, in 2010 Tim Hortons released its festive holiday mugs and there were two versions of it, one was for Québec and one was for the rest of Canada, the one for Québec was slightly different in which it was more custom made to suit the Quebeckers while the other one made for the rest of Canada was more generic. This demonstrated Tim Hortons' concern for regional differences and its willingness to adapt its messaging accordingly.

What is this Article About?

• It is about how companies and marketers often do not market to Québec as comprehensively compared to its English speaking provinces and how Québec is often left out or very poorly marketed to.

Why is Québec Unique?

• Many companies simply do not consider Québec as their ‘primary cultural market', due to the huge cultural difference in Québec compared to the other Canadian provinces.

Why is Québec Unique?

• Another reason companies do this is because Québec often looks like Puerto Rico, meaning Québec looks like a small regional market requiring that business be conducted in a different language and companies seem to think it is not worth their time and resources to invest in marketing to Québec when they can just use that money to market to the rest of Canada which has a similar culture and would increase their consumer market more.

How does the Rest of Canada view this Issue?

• To be honest, the rest of Canada seems not to care since it isn't really affecting their day to day and is not a moral injustice people can get behind. Since this is not hurting anyone directly and people have not really noticed there is not much awareness behind this topic so people can not fix the problem if people do not know about.

How can Marketers Use this Article?

• Marketers can notice that Québec is not heavily marketed too so they can take advantage of this by marketing more aggressively in Québec and try to dominant the market where there are not many competitors to solidify themselves as market leaders and build a good brand image so competitors will have a tough time entering the market and marketing themselves.