Tourisme Montreal is once again showing Canadians the Euro-style experiences they can find in their own backyard with its latest campaign.

The “EuRoap Trip” campaign, developed with agency of record Lg2, targets the Ontario and Northeastern U.S. audience by highlighting the similarities between the city and some of Europe’s most sought-after destinations, and not just ones in France.

“At first, people think of Paris, but when we started looking at all of the different aspects of Montreal, we realized it also has a lot in common with London and Berlin,” says Marilou Aubin, partner, VP and ECD at Lg2. “We looked at the data to find the cities in Europe that were most searched for – Amsterdam, Berlin, London and Paris – and we went around and found all the landmarks Montreal has that are similar to landmarks in those cities.”

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The campaign is a return to a tried-and-true strategy for the city, which has long traded on its reputation as “Europe without the jetlag,” particularly in the business and events market, Aubin says.

In the years prior to the pandemic, however, the city tried to target free spirit travellers and play up its culture of festivals – a trend it necessarily had to pivot away from as those festivals were canceled due to lockdowns.

In a sense, the campaign is another iteration of Tourisme Montreal’s summer marketing efforts, which played on the idea of Montreal as an island destination for those who couldn’t – or didn’t want to – fly south, but this time speaking to travellers who aren’t yet comfortable flying to Europe.

But what was equally important to the organization was that Montreal was presented as the “Plan A” option for travellers, and not just a “consolation destination.”

“It isn’t a sad comparison. We’re promoting Montreal as a core destination,” says Aubin.

The campaign consists of four 15-second videos that will air on connected TV, YouTube and in gas station screens. The videos are supported by OOH and web banners and a heavy social media push across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. It will be in market through the rest of the fall.

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