Also in this report:
– Top Client Overall: Richmond Savings’ creative riches p.34
– Top Client, Alcoholic Beverages: Kokanee a beer for B.C. and beyond p.35
– Top Client, Sports & Entertainment: Stampede advertising leaves chuckwagons behind p.36
– Top Client, Food & Beverage: Dairyworld: New frontiers p.37
– Top Client, Restaurants: Food a passion at Earl’s p.37
– Top Client, Retail: Save-On-Foods takes fresh approach to category p.38
– Top Client, Recreation & Leisure: Eye-opening effort revitalizes Playland p.39
– Top Client, Telecommunications: Telus’ branding strategy promotes image of stability p.40
– Top Client, Tourism: Unpaid media has paved way for Yukon gold rush p.40
This issue features a Strategy first: a special Western Canada edition of our annual Top Clients report, devoted to recognizing the accomplishments of the region’s outstanding marketers. (Our inaugural Quebec Top Clients report was published in the March 3 issue.)
Strategy’s selections appear on pages 34-40. Our editorial staff has reviewed the past year’s news, solicited expert opinion and chosen client organizations that stand out as exemplary marketers in a variety of business categories.
It is important to note that the distinction of Top Client is not awarded on the basis of great advertising alone. Rather, our selections are based on what we consider all the fundamental tenets of good marketing: sales results, attention to brand development, innovation and relationships with suppliers.
Measured against these criteria, Richmond Savings Credit Union has clearly earned the honor of being named Western Canada’s Top Client for 1997.
This June, Toyota dealers across British Columbia are going to be very familiar with the Chinese sport of dragon boat racing.
That’s because, for the first time in the association’s history, Toyota BC Dealers has signed on as a gold-level sponsor for this popular summer event. As a tie-in, the dealers will run a Dragon Event Sale during the months of June and July, with tv, print, radio and point-of-sale support.
This initiative is simply the latest phase of a two-year effort to court Vancouver’s affluent and fast-growing Asian market.
‘We knew we had to wake up here and take advantage of the opportunity,’ says George Crookshank, the account director for Toyota BC Dealers at Vancouver’s Glennie Stamnes Strategy. Research, he adds, indicated that it was simply a matter of leveraging the target’s already considerable familiarity with the Toyota brand.
While many companies pay lip service to ethnic marketing, Crookshank says Toyota has put its money where its mouth is, involving itself heavily in community events such as the Dragon Boat Festival and the Chinese New Year celebrations, and making major buys of Chinese media.
Last year, the association bought newspaper and radio. Crookshank says this year’s buy is substantially greater, thanks in part to the addition of Chinese tv. In fact, he says, the dealers have replicated almost everything they do in mainstream English media, with the exception of busboards.
With Chinese media still relatively inexpensive, he argues, this is the ideal time to buy deeply and use it to build the brand.
One big difference between the Chinese ads and their English-language counterparts is that the former never emphasize lease programs, since these hold little interest for the typical Chinese car-buyer. ‘Asian people buy with cash.’ Crookshank says.
The Toyota BC Dealers consists of 34 dealerships 20 on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, the remainder in the interior. Gary Dutton, Pacific zone manager for the Vancouver Island dealers, says it’s vital that all members of the association, throughout the province, be fully aware of overall strategic direction.
Seven directors have been appointed from the association to meet with the agency on a regular basis to discuss strategy. They then pass the information on to the individual dealers. Glennie Stamnes itself is also in regular contact with dealers.
‘The secret for this agency is that they go to the grassroots,’ says Dutton.
