Also in this report:

– Top Client, Consumer Electronics: Nintendo’s cool quotient rated high by kids p.18

– Top Client, Telecommunications: Fido wants to be man’s best friend p.20

– Top Client, Travel and Tourism: CTC message travels p.20

– Top Client, Computer and Office Equipment: Microsoft Canada leads the way p.23

– Top Client, Retail: Chapters: a good story p.23

– Top Client, Pharmaceutical: Wampole transforms itself p.23

– Top Client, Automotive: Toyota sales motor along p.24

– Top Client, Sports and Entertainment: Livent a player on the international stage p.24

– Top Client, Alcoholic Beverages: Labatt goal: top of the hops heap p.24

For the third year, Strategy presents its Top Clients report, an annual feature devoted to recognizing the accomplishments of leading clients in the Canadian marketing community.

This year, as before, Strategy’s editorial staff reviewed the year’s news and chose 10 clients, representing as many business categories, that stand out clearly as exemplary marketers.

These selections are based on what we consider the fundamental tenets of good marketing: sales results, attention to brand development, innovation and relationships with suppliers.

Measured against these criteria, Bank of Montreal has unquestionably earned the distinction of being named Strategy’s 1997 Client of the Year.

Just as Canadians have struggled to outgrow their image as ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water,’ so the Bank of Montreal wants to be known as more than just a ‘casher of cheques and issuer of credit cards.’

To this end, says George Bothwell, bmo’s senior vice-president of public affairs, the bank has undertaken three key initiatives over the past 12 months ­ all of them based on the principle of deepening customer relationships, rather than simply increasing the number of transactions.

In February, for example, bmo opened its first Investore, a Toronto-based centre offering advice to both novice and experienced investors, as well as a full range of investment products and services, in an informal, retail-style setting.

Three months later, bmo opened the Pathways financial growth centre in Burlington, Ont. More akin to a library than a bank, this open-concept centre has features such as a lecture theatre, a resource area and interactive kiosks, all designed to encourage customers to learn about financial planning and investment alternatives at their own pace.

But the first ­ and by far most heavily-publicized ­ of bmo’s initiatives over the past year was the October launch of mbanx, its new virtual banking division.

Unlike the pc or Internet banking options offered by bmo’s chartered bank competitors, Bothwell says, mbanx is much more than an alternative delivery channel.

Rather, it’s a whole new bank, with its own set of offerings ­ among them individual portfolio managers, a money-back guarantee if service standards are not met, and a program that rewards customers for consolidating their business with mbanx. Not to mention the option of doing business with the bank by whatever method one chooses ­ mail, phone, fax, abm, pc, or Internet.

The idea behind mbanx, says Bothwell, was not simply to offer existing Bank of Montreal customers an ancillary service, but to go after a brand new target market ­ the ‘financially active and technologically sympathetic’ customer ­ with a brand new proposition.

As he sees it, the true competitors to mbanx aren’t the likes of the Toronto-Dominion Bank or cibc. They’re the virtual banking concerns ING Direct and Citizens Bank ­ the former a huge entity out of the Netherlands, the latter a division of VanCity Savings credit union in b.c.

‘That’s not to denigrate what [Canada’s chartered] banks are doing, because it’s a perfectly legitimate strategy to offer additional technological services to an existing client base,’ says Bothwell. ‘But we see [mbanx] as part of an emerging new category of financial services.’

Which helps explain why bmo’s campaign for mbanx had a volume and frequency normally reserved for the introduction of a new car or beer.

The high-profile launch spot by Vickers & Benson Advertising ­ which showed hundreds of fresh-faced children walking down a road singing The Times They Are A-Changin’ ­ generated veritable rivers of ink, as disgruntled columnists and editorial writers took the bank to task for what they saw as a crass appropriation of a Bob Dylan protest song.

Bothwell acknowledges that the bank was surprised by the depth and passion of the reaction. But he isn’t convinced that the negative opinion expressed by the media was shared by the general public. Tracking surveys at the time, he says, showed that Canadians understood what bmo was trying to do, and accepted the music for what it was: ‘a nice anthem.’

As for the change in tone from last year’s earnest ­ some might even say depressing ­ ‘Signs of the Times’ campaign, in which ordinary Canadians were shown holding hand-written signs expressing their very real financial concerns, Bothwell says the new campaign was a natural evolution. It showed that, indeed, bmo has listened and is changing to meet their needs.

It’s a message that has become increasingly important, as bmo attempts to position itself within an emerging North American economy.

Last year, the bank purchased 16% of Grupo Financiero Bancomer, the second-largest bank in Mexico. And some 40% of the income of the Bank of Montreal group of companies now comes from its ownership of Harris Bank, a u.s. financial institution with a strong presence in Chicago and the Mid-West.

‘As you see the ings and the Wells Fargos coming [into Canada],’ Bothwell says, ‘our intention ­ and I think we’re well on the way ­ is to have our own North American presence, and to establish ourselves as a fully integrated North American bank.’