Monthly Archives: October 2013

Comm465 Oct 24 Post 3

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I leave this post in response to my classmate Maggie Lo’s October 8th blog entitled “Station Square’s Attractiveness”, linked to here.

When searching for a good piece to post a reply to, this one caught my eye for a number of reasons. First of all, purple. Who wouldn’t stop to look for a second with a background like that? The second and primary reason was the applicability of the content: the sudden explosion of high-rise condos all over Greater Vancouver.

One of the larger developments is happening at Station Square in Burnaby near Metrotown. Maggie explains the various ways the developers draw in customers for the new high rises:

  • Have mailing lists and pre-sale showrooms with sales agents on hand to build a relationship
  • Selling the condo units in phases rather than all at once.
  • Advertising a sense of community within the development rather than a collection of homes

I thought it would be worthwhile to point out that each of these tactics match up quite nicely with at least one of the Principles of Consumer Behaviour. The first point fits the commitment principle nicely. By having the customer on a mailing list for easy access and building an in-person relationship through pre-sale events, it makes them more comfortable with the sales environment and more importantly they’ve invested time into the relationship. The second introduces the scarcity principle. These are massive 35-57 story high-rises; there are plenty of homes. By selling them in limited quantities and emphasizing that they are going quickly, it creates an illusion that the customer must buy quickly. The community aspect reminds me of the liking principle. The developer emphasizes that there are people just like the customer also looking in the same area and will be living nearby.

Molson Canadian – Traveling Beer Fridge

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There’s something about a locked door in plain sight that just annoys the heck out of people. The mystery, the audacity, and the stubborn challenge it issues just begs you to take a crack at it. Maybe that’s why I found this recent video from Molson Canadian so interesting:

Molson Beer Fridge Ad

The beer company dropped bright red fridges stocked full of Molson Canadian beer in several large European cities. The beer was free, but there’s a catch: The fridge will only open once a Canadian passport is scanned. Security issues aside (would you scan your passport in a random vending machine in a public place?) I thought it was a cool promotion that brought a lot of different people together, if only for the time it takes to down a brew.

Molson is taking a page out of Coca-Cola’s book on this one. The soft drink company has been doing public installation and “feel good” entertainment stunts for years. If the edited video is to be believed, this type of stunt builds a social atmosphere between complete strangers, and generates an interest in the brand. The most interesting part to me, however, is that Canadian isn’t even sold very widely in the countries in which the fridges were placed. So why pull a stunt in a country that isn’t even a target market?

This brings me to analyzing the ad again. Watching it as an ad rather than a story, I realized that what Molson is doing is more along the lines of building homesickness in a customer that is already at home. The video is more about showing the happiness in the Canadian travelers when they get a little piece of home after being so far away for so long.

I believe Molson did a very good job with this promotion. Not only is it entertaining to watch and achieves the desired effect, but it fits right in with Molson’s current marketing strategy of tying itself to Canada itself. Installed “observational” ads are becoming more popular, and the Molson traveling beer fridge is a prime example.