It seems like you can’t swing a dead beaver these days without hitting some kind of advertising extolling Canadian pride and ingenuity.
For several weeks now, Campaign's inboxes have received a steady flow of ads created in response to the continuing threats of economic coercion and just plain disrespect from Washington. While many have been good and effectively hit the patriotic sweet spot, one recent execution in particular caught my eye. And my ear.
Last week, Molson Canadian, which gave us perhaps the OG example of Canadian pride in advertising with 2000’s “The Rant,” unveiled a spot called “Since 1786” that speaks to the brand’s 239-year history in Canada.
While consumers might have expected an updated version of the aforementioned “Rant”—which they already got last month, when an anonymous group of ad professionals dropped an unbranded spot called “We Are Canadian”—“Since 1786” takes a more earnest approach to promoting a brand with proud Canadian roots (even though it’s now part of a U.S.-Canadian conglomerate).
Evocatively soundtracked by the 1977 Rush song “Closer to the Heart,” a straight ahead pop song from a band that The Guardian once memorably described, to my eternal delight, as “widdly-woo guitars and albums about mythic priests,” the spot is a testament to the signifcant role the brand—and the band—has played in Canadian culture.
It is essentially a 30-second montage of the brand just showing up throughout Canadian history, from its historic delivery trucks, to being transported to a person's home via sled and bike, to its numerous sports sponsorships, and even the clothes we wore.
(I confess I was once the proud owner of a pair of Molson Dry-branded “sugar sack” pants. Wore them on a first date with my future wife. She was NOT impressed, despite my protestations that they’d been purchased new for the occasion. But I digress…)
The spot begins with a narrator employing the kind of self-deprecation at which Canadians excel. “Since when did Canada matter?” he asks, even though the accompanying slides suggest the ad is about why Canada actually does matter.
Since when did we have anything to brag about?” he asks, before adding perhaps the ultimate nod to our history, “Since when were Canadians…not sorry?”
There's a noticeable tonal shifts towards the end, though, with the words “Since when were Canadians proud? When weren’t we?” perfectly coinciding with the song shifting gear to a harder, even slightly more defiant, edge.
Neither Molson nor its agency Rethink would say much about the campaign, though VP of marketing Leslie Malcolm did say they’re “very proud” of the new spot.
There are, of course, no accidents in marketing; every visual, every piece of music, every word and phrase is subjected to a painstaking evaluation in order to best determine how it's aligned not just with brand objectives, but also the tone of a piece of communications.
While “Closer to the Heart’s” rippling acoustic intro and plaintive melody seem to fit with the emotion that Rethink and Molson seem to be attempting to evoke here, its lyrics could suggest a specific reason why it was selected.
In a 2024 analysis of the song, which begins with the couplet “And the men who hold high places/must be the ones who start/to mold a new reality/closer to the heart,” American Songwriter wrote that the song is essentially saying that “societal changes can be initiated at all levels if people put in the effort.”
It continues: “Specifically, the idea of doing a job by putting something of yourself into it and not going through the motions can have major implications to the wider world.”
So, could Molson be subtly advocating for us to be doing more than sleepwalking through a time when the broader needs of society could all-too-easily be cast aside for those of the individual?
Or perhaps this ascribing too much meaning to a beer commercial, even one that arrives at such a fraught moment in our country’s history. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a perfect symbiosis marriage of music and imagery that the best advertising does so well.
I confess, I texted a simple and rather dismissive one word reaction to my Campaign colleagues when I first saw the spot: “Meh.”
But sometimes going deeper on something, trying to parse meaning from a piece of communication, can shape—or even reshape—opinion. That can seem increasingly rare in a world of kneejerk reactions and "hot takes" that are cavalierly dispensed before moving on to the next thing.
Music nerds like me talk a lot about "close listening," the idea of looking below the surface to parse meaning from a song that might not be immediately apparent. For me, a similarly "close watch" of this spot suggested that celebrating community, and everyday wins is something that should be held closer to everyone’s heart.
