As happens5:48The announcement ‘I am Canadian’ has returned to the big. Your star has feelings found
Before being a basic element of CBC Radio, Jeff Douglas was better known as Joe from Molson’s popular savage “I’m Canadian!” Television commercials.
Now, 25 years later, in the middle An imminent commercial war with the United States. Threats to the national sovereignty of Canada and A swell of Canadian patriotism – The announcement of beer is obtaining a second life as a phenomenon of social networks.
Douglas first noticed the flourishing resurgence of the announcement a couple of weeks ago.
“Some people were labeling me directly in social and, you know, saying: ‘Jeff, it’s time to do this again’ or ‘Hello, we need them back,” Douglas said. As happens Host Koksal.
Since then, it is exploited, especially in TiktokWhere Canadian users share commercial clips, or use the audio to register their own actions of their patriotic writing.
Ironically, Molson merged with an American company a few years after the announcement was launched in 2000. But that does not prevent Canadians from sharing the feeling behind him today as a commercial war progresses.
Today, Douglas is better known on the east coast as The host of the CBC’s radio Major New Scotland. Before that, almost a decade in national waves as Coanfitrion of As happens Together with Carol Off.
But in 2000, he was the “Joe Canada” who took the flannel, standing alone in a stage, refuting Canadian stereotypes and boasted of patriotic fervor about fans, before shouting the slogan, “I am Canadian! ” A applause with enthusiasm.
Listening to his younger self to boast of touches, Beavers and Chesterfields all these years later brings “complex” feelings, says Douglas.
On the one hand, the actor turned into Broadcastr has “good memories” of the commercial, and is pleased to see that resonates with people in difficult times. At the same time, he says that he has learned much more in recent decades about the darkest aspects of Canadian history, and cares about the country that slides again in the “blind patriotism” of the first Aughes.
“I feel that people need to feel that love,” he said. “I just hope I don’t forget that there is still a lot of work to do.”
A marketing success
The announcement, written by Glen Hunt and entitled The Perorata, It was a great success when it was launched.
Antonia Mantonakis, Marketing Professor and Consumer Psychology at the University of Brock at St. Catharines, Ontario, remember to have studied it at the University.
“Many business teachers were teaching that case, and when talking about Canadian identity and that influence. But then it seemed to lose their steam and outcare,” Mantonakis told CBC.
Now, while the president of the United States, Donald Trump, threatens tariffs on Canadian goods and suggests that Canada becomes state 51, Canadians are suddenly booing the hymn of the United States in sporting events and Bicothand American goods.
A recent Angus Reid survey He discovered that, between December and February, national pride increased throughout the country by nine points, from 58 percent to 67 percent.
Despite a pause in American tariffs, the impulse to buy Canadian products continues through the GTA. But as Dale Manucdoc of CBC explains, there are some gray areas that exist when buying products in your homeland.
The marketing world, says Mantonakis, has noticed.
“In the last week more or less, each teacher, each class, regardless of the subject, this theme of Canadian identity has appeared again and again,” said Mantonakis.
But The Perorata It probably will not be the same blessing for Molson that 25 years ago, he said. Five years after it reached the airways, the company once Canadian merged with the American coer coars.
Instead, he suspects that his new popularity “will contribute to the general probability that a consumer is more likely to choose Canadian products.”
Even if the waves of patriotism finally runs out, and tariffs stop reachering the headlines, says that the change of consumer that happens now could have lasting impacts.
People can change to a Canadian tomato wine or sauce, for example, due to the news. But then they stay with him because it turns out to be really delicious, or because it has a lower carbon footprint or simply by habit.
“You think, well, why haven’t we bought this before? This is great. We will definitely have to buy it again,” he said.
The good, the bad and ugly
Douglas says that “I’m Canadian!” Ad played an chord with young people in his Heydey, similar to the reaction he is receiving now.
“It was fun and it was like, you know, bite the thumb to the United States and stand at a point where national pride was already really high,” he said.
“It was very easy for me to believe in Canada. We were not dealing with the totality of what was Canada. And in the last 25 years, we had to look that and we had to face it.”
He was about 28 when he starred in the announcement, and says that he did not know much about the history of colonialism of Canada, and violence and forced assimilation perpetrated against indigenous children during scoop and in residential schools, the last one he closed in 1997 .
The copy of the announcement itself includes lines on not living in an igloo, eating thick or owning a sled of dogs, references to indigenous people in northern Canada.
In addition, Douglas says that patriotism that many came so easily in 2000 is much more difficult to find for young people who reach the age of majority during the pandemic, the growing cost of living and the lack of affordable homes.
Now that the winds are changing, Douglas says it is cautious, but hopeful.
“I think people look around their communities, their neighbors, their families, and you know, people in the provinces and territories and going: no, you know what? Canada is them. And that is what is what defend.
