Member Spotlight: Mondou

Congratulations to our member, Mondou, who receives the gold medal in the Bye Bye 2021 contest!

French article from Isabelle massé, La Presse

<< ‘’ Dog owners will be delighted. The most popular ad that aired during the Bye bye 2021, as part of Radio-Canada’s “Le Bye bye de la pub” contest, was the Mondou ad in which a dog licks her private parts and then goes to kiss a guest during a New Year’s Eve party.

This is an honour for Letty, the dog hired for this humorous shoot, the advertising agency lg2, which created the message, and its client Mondou, which received $75,000 in media placement from Radio-Canada. “It’s a motivating contest,” says Geneviève Langlois, creative director of lg2. “Thanks to this one, we have a direct response from viewers. There are a lot of awards given out by our peers during the year, but we make ads like this to reach viewers.”

 

“This was the fourth year for the Bye bye commercials. This time, 94,400 votes were tallied, twice as many as last year, and 18 advertisers produced messages launched at the Bye bye. The popularity of this contest continues to grow and allows the entire community to celebrate Canadian talent,” said Donald Lizotte, General Manager and Chief Revenue Officer of CBC and Radio-Canada Media Solutions, in a release. The relevance and quality of the participating ads add even more prestige to this crowd-pleasing contest.”

“New Year’s Day allows brands to wish customers a happy new year and not necessarily to sell something,” notes Geneviève Langlois. People want to laugh. You have to include yourself in the context. It creates winning conditions.

This was Mondou’s second participation in the Radio-Canada contest. Last year, the message of animal droppings picked up by their owners, to the tune of Lisa LeBlanc’s song Aujourd’hui, ma vie c’est d’la marde, came in second place in the hearts of viewers.

For this second year, the order was clear! “Mondou wanted to hit a home run and do better than last year,” admits Geneviève Langlois.

”We knew we were on to something with this concept.”
Geneviève Langlois, creative director of lg2

“With the pandemic, there was an explosion in animal demand,” says Roxane Lalonde, marketing and digital strategy director for Mondou (a member of Groupe Legault). “It was a good year for Mondou in 2020. We then asked ourselves if we had reached the point where we could design advertising other than for in-store sales. We thanked the Legault family for their openness. Since it was worth it, we wanted to be even more daring in 2021.

Traditionally, half of Mondou’s annual marketing budget is reserved for November and December, when Mad Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday season attract a lot of sales.

No allergies

Letty, the actors and the entire production team – the spot was produced by Nova Film/BLVD – were commandeered on set in early December. “We were looking for an animal with a vigor to lick itself,” reveals Geneviève Langlois. “Because not all dogs lick themselves in such a dynamic way! We saw several. Letty stood out with her energy. However, we had to train her to lick on command… herself and someone else.”

Notice to the disdainful: the commercial was shot in the order of the story being told! So the dog was filmed licking her private parts before licking the actor! “We made sure it was clean,” laughs Geneviève Langlois. “The actor was aware of this.

For each take, the lower body of the animal was coated with a peanut butter-based liquid. It’s a good thing the actor wasn’t allergic!” laughs Roxane Lalonde. This year, current events helped us again: lockdown, that is to say, the distancing imposed between humans that we do not apply to our pets. We were ready to go that far.

Since Bye bye 2021, seen by nearly 4.7 million viewers, Mondou’s ad has been relayed many times. “On the French website Culturepub, for example, there were 122,000 shares and 5 million views in one week,” says Geneviève Langlois. So, even with a 30-second media placement estimated at $50,000, “we’re in the black in terms of impact.” >>

 

Source: original article written by Isabelle Massé from La Presse.
First seen in French on: www.lapresse.ca