My first post - New Molson Ads in the US and the Canada Brand

Many of you might have read the article about the new Molson Canadian ads for the US in the Globe and Mail (Molson ads in U.S. thick with clichés about Canada, Globe and Mail, Canadian Business B3). The article is about the launch of a new campaign to stimulate sales of Molson Canadian in the United States. According to the article the challenge for the brewery (Molson Coors) and its ad agency, Taxi NY, was "How to market Canadian to Americans." Paul Lavoie, the Canadian born Chief Creative Officer for Taxi NY is quoted as saying, "We don't have a clear identitiy internationally...They (the Americans) don't think of Canada, first of all. And when they do think of Canada, they go right for the clichés."

And so, the campaign is using the tag line "good nature," to market the beer with new television ads. In one of the ads "a bottle of Canadian shatters. Computer generated imagery shows pristine Canadian wilderness growing out of the spilled beer."

My question for you the tourism professional in Canada is: Does this kind of campaign help or hurt Canadian tourism? And what, if anything does it do for the new Canada Brand, keep exploring? Would a non-traditional partnership with Moslon wherein the Canada.Travel url would be printed in the labels of Molson Canadian bottles in the US with the "keep exploring" tag help or hurt Canadian Tourism?

Regards,

Jaime