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#Written by David Tam, 1996. #
#davidkftam@netscape.net Copyright 1999#
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David Tam
Wednesday, November 27, 1996.
Business Press Review
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Strauss, Marina. "Foreign firms don't fool Canadians". The Globe and Mail.
Thursday, November 21,1996. B16. ------------------
Many multinational corporations are trying to woo the Canadian market by
touting themselves as "truly Canadian" companies. The image makers try to put
a "Canadian face" on these companies because they believe consumers would
respond better to a home-grown entity. However, many risk the backlash from
Canadian consumers when this marketing scheme is realized. Consumers are
unlikely to take a company line at face value and they become offended if it
seems like a company has failed to be straightforward.
Sadly, some companies are going to the extremes by trying to "be more
Canadian than the maple leaf". For instance, Kellogg's has been marketing its
Just Right cereal as "The quintessential Canadian cereal". Though Kellogg Co.
is a truly American company based in Battle Creek Michigan, they are touting
their cereal as the ultimate Canadian brand. According to spokeswoman Joanne
Doyle, Kelloggs has tweaked the Just Right recipe for Canadians, separating
each of the four grains into different flakes. In the United States, the
grains are blended together. She states, "The Canadian cereal is very much
like Canada: diverse, not too extreme. They brought out all these qualities
that we thought were much like Canadians." Few Canadians can be fooled by such
marketing schemes, and the advertisements have stirred up public relations
trouble for Kelloggs Canada Inc.
In another case, AT&T Corp., based in New York, is touting its newly named
AT&T Canada Long Distance Services Co. as being as Canadian as home-grown Bell
Canada. Toyota Motor Corp. is another example. This Japanese-based automaker,
is airing advertisements that drives home a Canadian identity. It portrays a
woman in the Cambridge Ontario plant, creating a perception that the automaker
is set firmly in Canada.
This article shows the need for consumers to connect with a commercial
before they are willing purchase a product. The Canadian identity seems to be
of enormous financial value, because many multinational companies are spending
a lot of effort to portray this image. However, many consumers can recognize
these schemes and can be offended by them. This problem presents opportunities
to truly home-grown Canadian companies. They have an advantage in the domestic
market because of the high value of their home-grown identity. They can
effectively use this advantage to successfully compete against multinationals
in the Canadian market. Perhaps they could even reveal the true identity of
these multinationals to Canadian consumers.
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