Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id WAA22440 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 20 Apr 2000 22:56:03 +0100 Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.20000420160251.007fb4e0@rongenet.sk.ca> X-Sender: hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 16:02:51 -0600 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk, "Memetics Discussion List" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> From: Lloyd Robertson <hawkeye@rongenet.sk.ca> Subject: Re: Fwd: Beer ad spurs Canadian pride In-Reply-To: <20000415155403.AAA3788@camailp.harvard.edu@[205.240.180.44 ]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Very interesting, Wade. Actually, I thought Budweiser was Molson's best
selling label. Well, I guess, technically, the article is right in any case
because Molson only leases the label from it's owners in U. S. America.
Interesting positioning, Molson's can now cultivate beer drinkers from both
sides!
My understanding is that Ronald Reagan's handlers used an effective memetic
campaign to ensure the popularity of a president of less than notworthy
ability (he didn't even make it in Hollywood as a grade "B" actor). They
began using sophisticated
polling so that they could plant ancillary ideas into the
population that would eventually result in a public opinion ready
to accept their right wing political agenda. They then trained former
Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in their method. In fact, the
Progressive Conservative's polling company became a legally owned
subsiduary of the holding company that, in turn, owned the Republican's
main polling firm.
Anyhow, Mulroney cagely said that free trade was a non-issue during
and immediately after his first successful election. The consensus is that
had he admitted his true intentions at the time the opposition to free
trade in Canada would have overwhelmed him.
I am no ad man but my understanding is that a memetic method of political
manipulation would involve controlling and manipulating information so that
memes that are attractive to the
product being sold are implanted in the minds of people before the
sale is ever suggested. In time the sale comes to appear
inevitable.
The memetic campaign in Canada during the 1980s included an undermining of
our belief in Canadian independence, an undermining of Canadian
self-confidence in our ability to act independantly, a
glorification of things U.S. and an identification with "bigness".
Included was a campaign to place the budget ahead of
unemployment in the minds of Canadians. Our health care system was
undermined because we could not afford it and then it was compared,
unfavorably, to the one in the U.S. Laws were passed accepting the
"intellectual property rights" of U.S. pharmaceutical companies
thereby given them extended patent protection with the implication
that they had, somehow, the moral "high ground". Fears were
cultivated over our "isolation" given the economic successes of
Japan and the European Union. The image of the U.S. as our "big
brother protector" and friend was promoted in the media. The image
of a personal relationship with the U.S., not shared with any other
country, was given a boost when Mulroney and Reagan publicly sang
"Irish Eyes Are Smiling" at a summit in Quebec. This was one of
many staged events designed to foster the image of a special
"CanAm" relationship. The result of all of these memetic triggers
was that a population that had been overwhelmingly opposed to free
trade came to accept it on terms offered by the United States.
I would hypothesize that the memetic effects of that campaign would have
continued. Molson's has discovered that it is now easy to market Budweiser
Beer and than it's own Canadian brands took a lesser market share. (Okay,
I don't know it this is true in other parts of the country but here in
Northern Sask. "Bud" easily commands 45% of the market all by itself).
Despite a World Health Organization study showing that, in a comparison of
Canadian, Cuban and U.S. health care, we ranked first and the U.S. ranked
last, Alberta continues to push for some kind of privatized or two tier
health care system. Frankly, U.S. ownership of our economy has climbed
since the more nationalist Trudeau Liberals introduced foreign ownership
controls (Mulroney dismantled those controls)
Maybe the reaction to the Molson's Canadian ad is a backlash to the longer
term memetic trend which has us increasing assimilated into U.S. American
culture and economy.
Lloyd
At 11:54 AM 15/04/00 -0400, Wade T.Smith wrote:
>Memes always sprout at the borders.
>
>____________________________
>
>Beer ad spurs Canadian pride
>
>By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff, 4/15/2000
>
>MONTREAL - Standing foursquare in front of a screen flashing Canadian
>symbols - beavers, Ottawa's Peace Tower, the Maple Leaf flag - an average
>Joe in a checked flannel shirt rips into American misperceptions about
>his country.
>
>''I have a prime minister, not a president. I speak English or French,
>not American,'' he says, voice swelling with emotion. ''And I pronounce
>it `about,' not `a-boot.'''
>
>''I believe in peacekeeping, not policing; diversity, not assimilation,''
>he goes on in the 60-second spot as the national icons loom over his
>shoulder. ''And that the beaver is a proud and noble animal.''
>
>Strangely, in a country known for its aversion to the sort of rah-rah
>jingoism associated with its southern neighbor, this nationalist tirade
>has become an overnight sensation: taped and shown in bars, filling
>megascreens at hockey games, performed live in movie theatres.
>
>Stranger still is the revved-up reaction the ad is evoking in this
>notoriously reticent land - wild cheers, stamping of feet, frantic
>flag-waving, and fists punching the air.
>
>And perhaps strangest of all, the spot is not the cunning propaganda of
>some ultrapatriot cabal, but a commercial for Molson Canadian beer.
>
>''No one knows what to make of it. It's a pretty anti-American message,
>but it's real cool the way it stands up for Canada,'' said Josie Flynn,
>22, a part-time student at Montreal's Concordia University, as she sipped
>a half-pint in a west-end bar. ''It leaves you feeling real proud and
>kind of choked up.''
>
>First aired last month, the commercial has become an oddly potent
>rallying point for a country where feelings of national pride are seldom
>spoken; a country whose self-image often seems lost in the cultural,
>political, and economic shadow cast by the superpower next door.
>
>''We have to remind ourselves who we are in the face of the deluge of
>flag-waving, pure Yankee Americana,'' wrote Peter Goddard, a columnist
>for the Toronto Star. ''It's taken Molson to revive the great Canadian
>identity.''
>
>Christopher Dornan, director of the School of Journalism and
>Communication at Ottawa's Carleton University, said the ad seems to have
>struck an especially responsive chord among younger Canadians.
>
>''They see it as a straight-up expression of national pride, even though
>the symbols are a bit trivial - beavers, and that we call couches
>`chesterfields,' or pronounce the letter `z' as `zed,''' he said. ''But
>everyone's talking about it, and usually over beers.''
>
>At Molson Breweries and its advertising agency, Bensimon Byrne D'Arcy,
>both based in Toronto, the spot is known simply as ''The Rant.'' And the
>makers of Canada's best-selling beer seem genuinely astonished by the
>visceral response the campaign has stirred from Halifax to Vancouver.
>
>''It's incredible. We've never had anything like we're getting on this -
>I mean, after all, it's a beer commercial,'' said Paul Thomson, manager
>of corporate communications for the 212-year-old brewing firm. ''It just
>seems to have tapped a powerful undercurrent of feeling that a lot of
>people never suspected was out there.''
>
>Thomson insisted the message is not meant to be anti-American. ''It's
>pro-Canadian. It speaks to who we are, and what we aren't.''
>
>But the commercial also flaunts an angry edge, slashing at US stereotypes
>about Canadians as much as celebrating a distinctly Canadian identity.
>And it may reveal that Canadians, too, are joining the tide of reaction
>against American gigantism that has been sweeping other parts of the
>planet, especially Europe.
>
>''I don't want to overanalyze a beer ad,'' said Dornan. ''But what seems
>to have grabbed attention is the way it expresses frustration with the
>all-pervasiveness of American culture.''
>
>The commercial opens with an actor alone on a stage in front of a screen
>depicting Canadian images. His tone, at the outset, is polite and
>diffident - archetypically Canadian - but quickly gathers in intensity
>and assertiveness.
>
>''I am not a lumberjack or fur trader. I don't live in an igloo, eat
>blubber, or own a dog sled,'' he declares, voice turning raspy with
>emotion. ''A tuque is a hat. A chesterfield is a couch. It's pronounced
>`zed' - `zed!' - not `zee.'
>
>''Canada is the second-largest land mass, the first nation of hockey, and
>the best part of North America!'' he roars to a finish. ''My name is Joe
>and I AM CANADIAN!''
>
>Molson's logo is briefly shown, and the commercial ends.
>
>''It's almost like the opening scene of Patton, or the speech in `Citizen
>Kane,''' Dornan said. ''Only instead of General Patton or Charles Foster
>Kane, here is some ordinary guy in a lumber shirt ranting about Canada. I
>have to wonder what Americans visiting the country would possibly make of
>it.''
>
>The commercial has made a star of actor Jeff Douglass, a native of Nova
>Scotia. This week, Molson sent him around Canada to perform the bit
>before live audiences. Tonight, he will perform ''The Rant'' at the
>opening of the playoff between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa
>Senators.
>
>''The majority of people in the country love the spot,'' Douglass told a
>newspaper. ''They love the patriotism and message of it.''
>
>Meanwhile, Molson has been inundated by Canadians praising the ad. There
>have also been gripes from unamused Americans: ''So I am stupid, have no
>redeeming social value, speak `American,' and drive a big truck with a
>Confederate flag,'' wrote one peevish Yank. ''That is how I've been
>described by you ... jackasses.''
>
>The campaign is already advertising legend, even south of the border. The
>Ad Critic, a Web site followed by the industry, this week ranked the
>commercial among the Top 10 in North America, an unusual feat for a spot
>aimed solely at Canada's 30 million people.
>
>The company says there is no way of knowing yet whether the campaign will
>boost sales of Molson Canadian. But barkeepers report the commercial is a
>megahit with consumers of all brands of beer.
>
>''It's awesome. Everyone yells and screams when it comes on TV,'' Fay
>Kranna, manager of Courtnall's Sports Grill in Vancouver, told the
>National Post newspaper. ''People say the words along with it. They get
>pretty hyped.''
>
>This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 4/15/2000. © Copyright
>2000 Globe Newspaper Company.
>
>
>This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
>Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
>For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
>see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
>
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For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
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