There’s a Kraft Heinz commercial running in Canada right now that is a perfect embodiment of the geopolitical moment between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. In it, the brand is celebrating its Canadian workers, and highlighting all the Canadian ingredients in its products like peanut butter, cheese, and Kraft Dinner.
For context, in case you don’t read the news: Since the election, President Trump has not only threatened and implemented trade tariffs on Canadian goods, but has added insult to injury by suggesting America’s longtime ally become its 51st state. This has not gone over well in Canada for obvious reasons.
That’s why an American conglomerate like Kraft Heinz feels the need to clarify a few things. Sure, the cream cheese might be called Philadelphia, but IT’S MADE IN MONTREAL with CANADIAN DAIRY, WE SWEAR. As a Canadian, it feels to me like the brand equivalent of my American friends turning to me during every commercial break of a hockey game to assure me they don’t actually want to annex my country.
Canadian to the core
Of course, it’s not only American companies creating ads to hype how deep their Canadian connections are. This moment has given Canadian brands a chance to really fly their maple leaf flags to make sure we all know who’s really from here.
That’s important because Canadians buy more American-made goods than the U.K., France, Japan, and China combined. Yet a recent KPMG study found that 70% of Canadians would boycott U.S. products if President Trump implemented his 25% tariffs, while 80% are actively seeking non-U.S. alternatives when Canadian options aren’t available.
The threats and tensions aren’t just theoretical: The Globe & Mail reported this week that cross-border travel is falling sharply: Statistics Canada reported that Canadians made 1.2 million fewer round-trip visits to the U.S. last month, which is 23% less than February 2024. Meanwhile, hotels in Maine are reporting a major drop in summer bookings, some as much as 90%.
Peter Chapman, founder of consulting firm SKUFood and a former executive with Canadian grocery giant Loblaw, told The Canadian Press, “It’s by far the most dramatic and swiftest shift I’ve seen in consumer behavior.”
Ian Westworth, Grey Canada’s head of planning and effectiveness, wrote in Campaign recently that this shift in consumer behavior presents a significant opportunity for Canadian brands to align with this cultural moment and tap into a groundswell of national pride. “This is an opportunity to build not just short-term momentum but also enduring consumer relationships,” said Westworth.
Halifax-based Moosehead Breweries is facing tariff impacts across its packaging supply chain, but managed to keep its sense of humor, creating a “Presidential Pack” of 1,461 beers—one beer for every day of the next four years. It’s sold at least 10 of the $3,400 packs so far, and now has a waiting list.
Everyone up here, from the Prime Minister to Mike Myers, has been using the “Elbows up” mantra (it’s a hockey thing). And now brands from both countries have been forced to reconcile what that actually means for them.
Flying the flag
This isn’t the first time a brand has aimed at the under-tapped resource that is Canadian national pride. Back in 2000, Molson Canadian created a spot called “The Rant” that featured a guy named Joe proudly dispelling what amounts to American stereotypes of Canada.
Cheesy, sure, but it struck a very strong nerve. As loathe as we are to admit it, a sizable proportion of the Canadian identity is tied to all the various ways we aren’t American. We’re often a nation stuck between the influences of a colonial past (Britain and France), and a pop culture present (America). Part of our contemporary identity is finding ways to move beyond this binary. Marvel star, and Toronto native, Simu Liu leaned into our unique brand of multiculturalism when he hosted the 2022 Juno awards (Canada’s Grammys) and re-created his own rant: “I grew up on ketchup chips, roti, and Jamaican beef patties . . .” That’s about as Toronto as you can get.
Like any emphasis on buying local, or touting Made in the USA stateside, brands have long used their connection to Canada as a marketing device here. But this time it’s different. It feels like all at once, every marketer in Canada is a maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving hoser.
Some are doing it by adding phrases like “Proudly Canadian” or “Canadian Made” to their labels. Others are creating full ad campaigns. Maple Leaf Foods recently launched a partnership with other Canadian brands urging people to “look for the leaf” on grocery products.
Grocery giant Loblaws has created a black “T” label to highlight products impacted by the new American tariffs.
Retailer Canadian Tire dropped a spot to reiterate its roots, while using “harsh winds” as a nod to the current political and economic climate.
The Canadian Forces even has a spot that could weirdly double as a tourism ad, encouraging Canadians to be “maple-leaf buying, local adventuring” in their spending habits.
Graham Candy, chief strategy officer at Toronto-based ad agency Angry Butterfly, is expecting to see more marketers join the chorus. “We feel like this is just the beginning of what we are going to see out there from a political and marketing comms perspective,” says Candy. “We expect to see bolder messages, more pride, potentially more anger and stronger ‘Us versus Them’ messaging.”
Personally, I’m just waiting for Nestlé to finally announce a brand partnership with Shoresy for its Canadian-made Drumsticks ice cream treat.
Same rules apply
For some marketers, wrapping their brands in the flag may work perfectly well. For others, it’s a mistake.
In so many ways, the current situation between Canada and the U.S. is unprecedented. But the solution for marketers is actually still rooted in the best practices of a modern brand: know what your core values are and use that as the lens through which you communicate with your audience.
Plenty of brands in Canada will jump on this patriotic bandwagon, but the ones who find success will be those who have built their Canuck credentials over time. Just as brands that decide to aim attention at a particular cultural niche—whether anime fans, surfers, or Swifties—their actions need to be true to who they are or else the brand will be called out and, ultimately, unsuccessful in reaching that audience.
American and international companies that have built the strongest brand connections to their Canadian consumers will ultimately weather the tariff storm, and it won’t be because of some haphazard flag-waving.
That said, Diageo should probably start re-airing its 2023 Crown Royal Super Bowl ad immediately.