Another season brings new opportunities for businesses to use Montreal Canadiens players to represent their brands, and a couple of the new campaigns deserve a mention.
Last season, when the calendar turned to October and the Montreal Canadiens hit the ice, Samuel Montembeault was everywhere on our TVs. The netminder was picked as the McPlayer of the year and was tasked with introducing the ranch poutine with bacon in Quebec. To make the ad as successful as possible, the restaurant teamed up with Rona, bringing in Mike from the “Mike Chez Rona” campaign to join the Habs’ goalkeeper. The ad was a hit with the public until Montembeault unfortunately started to struggle in net.
This year, Canadiens players are once again featured in plenty of ads on Quebec TV. For a few months now, Oliver Kapanen has been on our screens with Olivier Honda. But this week, a couple of funny new campaigns have appeared.
If you’re fed up with seeing the Manmade guys everywhere, you might want to avert your eyes, as they’re not going anywhere. Especially now that they’ve partnered with the Montreal Canadiens and have Ivan Demidov as a spokesman. The concept is simple: Demidov introduces their now world-famous boxers in a rather dull way at first, before he eventually turns on the charm.
That’s not the Russian’s only advert, though; he’s also featured in Billets.ca's latest campaign, this time with Lane Hutson and Alexandre Carrier. The ad features the two youngsters explaining their training regimen to the Quebecer, essentially saying they’re focusing on their upper body, repeating chest, “bras,” and “chest-bras” over and over, before Hutson asks Carrier if he has any questions. The blueliner says: “Aren’t you forgetting something?” An average Joe then pops up to say they are forgetting their back and to get him tickets to their skating show.
That must be the biggest wasted marketing opportunity ever. Focusing on the upper body generally means people aren’t doing “leg day.” It would have been well worth it to hire Canadiens coach Martin St-Louis, who has three trunks as legs, as well documented, to say “Guys, don’t forget leg day!” and cut to him running up and down the Bell Centre stairs as he so often does during the season.
There will definitely be more advertising campaigns featuring Canadiens players this season, but these few deserved a mention. Seeing the players get involved in French-language campaigns will surely please much of the fanbase.
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