Le Lait is testing out a new kind of product placement: stealthily slipping milk cartons into furniture showroom fridges.
Ten locations of the popular Quebec chain Brault & Martineau in the greater Montreal area were stocked with Le Lait cartons during May and June, strategically placed in pairs to reinforce Le Lait’s ‘two is better’ positioning. Nicole Dubé, marketing director at Montreal-based Quebec Federation of Milk Producers, says she’s thinking of testing the tactic in other markets in the fall. ‘It’s a new way to advertise,’ she says. ‘Every year we try to do something different.’
Dubé says that so far, people have been startled to see full fridges while shopping. ‘It’s a good surprise, though,’ she remarks, adding that she wouldn’t want to overdo the tactic. ‘I won’t do this every year. Maybe every two or three years.’
The idea to hook up with the popular store came from Montreal-based Touché PHD, and Dubé says the chain’s salespeople have gone above and beyond expectations. One of her colleagues went to check out the promo discreetly the day after it launched. She pretended to be shopping for a fridge, and feigned surprise when she opened the door and saw milk cartons. She asked the salesperson why the fridge was full of milk, and he responded by talking up milk’s benefits rather than explaining that it was a paid placement.
Dubé says the dairy farmers have grown comfortable with her experimenting with new ad tactics. ‘They say, ‘Do whatever you want – as long as it increases sales, we don’t care,” she says, adding that this promo was inexpensive anyway. ‘It’s a very small amount of my budget. But sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference.’
advertiser: Nicole Dubé, marketing director, Quebec Federation of Milk Producers
media agency: Touché! PHD
media strategists: Alexandre-Pascal Lamoureux, Charles Étienne Morier
ad agency: BBDO Montreal
CD: Daniel Andréani
Équipe de création: Dominique Audet,
Christopher Jones
Direction de projet: Lyne Clermont
Conseil: Mélie-Jade Dagenais
Production imprimée: Michèle Blanchette
Retouche-infographie: Marc Denault, Martine Cyr
Photographie: Tilt – Dominique Malaterre
You are cordially invited to submit your new, dead clever and previously unrevealed campaigns to editorial director Mary Maddever at mmaddever@brunico.com and CD Stephen Stanley at sstanley@brunico.com, co-curators of strategy’s Creative space.
