Bilingual English and French campaign for a Canadian retailer

Maple & Pine Outfitters sells jackets, boots and layering for Canadian winters through 14 stores in Ontario, 8 in Quebec and an online shop. Sales are about C$64 million a year, with 35% coming in October and November. Last autumn’s campaign was written in English in Toronto and translated into French by an agency two days before launch. Quebec customers complained on social media that the French read like a translation, one store’s window signs were challenged for not giving French enough prominence, and Quebec online sales fell 6% while Ontario grew 9%.

The marketing director, Isabelle Tremblay, wants this year’s campaign built in both languages from the start. The budget is C$420,000 for six weeks across paid social, search, email, in-store and a small amount of out-of-home advertising. She has asked for: - campaign objectives and KPIs by province and channel; - audience insight for Ontario and Quebec shoppers, including what they value and how they talk about winter; - a language and consent rule sheet covering Quebec’s French language requirements and Canada’s anti-spam law for email, written in general terms with sources; - one campaign idea expressed in English and French by transcreation, not translation; - a channel and budget plan; - a set of key assets in both languages; - tracking and a results template comparing provinces.

You must not spend real ad money. If you do not write French well, work with a fluent French speaker, ideally from Quebec, and name them. Done looks like a campaign plan, a rule sheet, a bilingual creative toolkit and a measurement plan. Isabelle will judge it on whether Quebec customers would feel the campaign was made for them.