To mark the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Marketing is looking to name the best Canadian advertising of the last 10 years. Up for the award are the Best of Show winners from the last 10 Marketing Awards shows. We’ve been profiling the nominees in Marketing Daily, and the winner will be announced at the 2010 Marketing Awards, Wednesday. Be sure to cast your vote by visiting CampaignOfTheDecade.ca.
On paper, the Familiprix “Ah, Ha!” campaign was kind of boring, said Jean-François Bernier.
But add the music and the actor who played the pharmacist and it “worked really good,” he said. Good enough to win Best of Show at the 2003 Marketing Awards.
The 15-second French-language spots titled “Hammer” “Toilet” and “Bedroom” used humour and everyday situations to sell the chain. The ads show a pharmacist beside individuals who are unknowingly in harm’s way. When the inevitable strikes, he waves his arms and says, ‘‘Ah, Ha! Familiprix.”
At the time, there was very little innovation in the pharma category in Quebec, said Bernier, then-creative director at Montreal-based BOS. “It was mostly retail, selling toilet paper… Then this underdog arrived with this super simple campaign that caught huge success among children and parents.”
“We ended up with an extremely simple concept,” said Bernier. “The client loved it and it was simple as that.”
Because Bernier was on the Marketing Awards jury that year, he wasn’t surprised to hear the agency’s named called when Best of Show was announced at the award ceremony.
“My moment was during the jury,” he said. At a certain point I realized it’s gonna win, and now it won. I was excited.”
Eight months after the campaign launched and sparked by the Best of Show win and a silver at Cannes, Bernier opened his own agency called Alfred, also in Montreal.
“The success was the talk of the town,” he said. “People are still talking about the campaign.”
“Really big people were talking about myself and my creative partner and suddenly I realized to start something… I had never thought of [opening my own agency] before.”
With the Marketing Awards just two days away, the Mentos “Make Art Pop” campaign from Cossette Montreal was leading the charge for the Campaign of the Decade title as of late last week. In second place is Molson Canadian’s “The Rant” from Bensimon-Byrne D’Arcy, followed by Taxi‘s “Elevator/Office/Golf” campaign for Viagra, and then Dove’s “Evolution.”
