Southern marketers look North to make the sell
Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services
Iqaluit (Mar 05/01) - North Americans are driving Toyota Tundra sport utility vehicles, chewing polar-ice gum and watching polar bears on TV hunting on icebergs while drinking Coca-Cola.
So what is the marketing fascination with the North?
"I think it's a fantasy, a mystique," said Rick McDonald, the Iqaluit manager of Petersen & Auger, a Northern bottling company.
McDonald has one up on the competition when it comes to bottled water.
Arctic Chiller, as opposed to Dentyne Ice Arctic Chill, Arctic Cat snowmobiles and Arctic Ridge Spring Water, is actually made in the Arctic.
"I think everyone should be able to utilize the word Arctic, especially if we are from the Arctic," he said. "We are from the North so it doesn't really seem like a big deal for us."
Arctic Ridge is a U.S. company that supplies water dispenser paraphernalia and water throughout New Jersey and New York.
But they don't get their water anywhere near the Arctic. According to a company executive, they get their water supply from Pennsylvania.
Arctic Chiller may come from Lake Geraldine -- the same lake that supplies the water running from the taps of every household in Iqaluit -- but filter it, add chlorine and that is indeed bottled Arctic water.
"Some people will spend extra money just to drink water from the Arctic," McDonald explained. "We haven't promoted it in the U.S. and Europe enough yet but we will."
And according to the marketers of the Toyota Tundra sport utility vehicle, the rationale behind its name is simple.
"We are trying to portray an image of a vehicle perceived as rugged, tough, made for the outdoors and indestructible," said vehicle marketing manager Bert Lanctot from his office in Toronto.
Indestructible? Well then, maybe Northerners should take the new marketing craze as a compliment.
