As the eyes of the world turn to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, we recognized a golden opportunity to engage the French population, one of our critical target audiences. The challenge wasn’t simply reaching them, but competing for their attention during what would be a saturated media environment. Timing, and execution, would be everything — and all of this on a minimal media budget relative to the big advertising players. It was therefore imperative that we find an original idea that not only made Montréal stand out from the crowd but also captured the imagination of the French audience.

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We created the “Bring the Flame to Montréal” campaign, a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek appeal to have the famed Olympic Torch Relay pass through Montréal on its way to Paris. The goal was to leverage the excitement of the relay and highlight the powerful connection between the people of France and Québec. The idea was predicated on the interesting fact that there are more French people in Montréal than almost half of the French cities the relay will pass through. It provided a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to dialogue with France in a wholly unique and playful way while celebrating the special relationship we share.

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The originality of the “Bring the Flame to Montréal” project lies in its highly unorthodox approach, a strategy that is unique in the field of tourism, broadly speaking. We understood that, in such a crowded media space with a lot of distractions, we needed to find a way to stand out from said crowd. We achieved this by employing an unconventional narrative and curiosity-sparking storytelling in our marketing strategy.

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Instead of focusing solely on Montréal attractions, and thus making the conversation solely about ourselves, we referenced relevant and familiar cultural touchstones that would resonate with the French public — all with a sense of humour and in the spirit of good-natured fun. Because of the longstanding commonalities — language, culture, joie de vivre and more — that Montréal shares with Paris, we were able to leverage insights into the French mindset that few other destinations would have been able to utilize. By speaking directly to our French target audience about a unifying and highly topical subject (the Paris Summer Olympic Games), we were able to open an exciting and passionate dialogue with the French. This had the effect of increasing the attractiveness and memorability of Montréal as a destination, as well as deepening the bond of attachment that already exists between our two nations going forward.