Canal+

More French than a baguette on a bicyclette

Ask your average Francois or Marie-Claude the name of a cool TV channel and the chances are they will say Canal+. Canal+ is the leading French-speaking pay channel which broadcasts premium programming to audiences in France and other French-speaking countries – as well as, perhaps rather oddly, Poland. It’s the sort of French equivalent of Sky in the UK or HBO in the US, delivering live sports, movies and home-made programmes, but even more importantly – and this is where we come in – it also commissions loads of fantastic advertising.

The channel has been using BETC in Paris for the past 10 years
and together, in an almost indecently close partnership, they have helped to shape a TV brand that is peculiarly French and that seems to deliver just what a French TV consumer wants.

Rodolphe Belmer, managing director of Canal+, explains his brand’s rather complex ethos: “We’re in a Latin country where people feel guilty about and look down their noses at entertainment in general and at television in particular. If we can’t turn that around into cultural entertainment, we can’t create value. People are never going to feel proud about spending an hour in front of their TV otherwise. That’s why we have to add that cultural depth. And that’s what Canal+ has used to build a powerful image we are proud of.”

This rather grand outlook and talk of ‘cultural depth’ has filtered through into the channel’s marketing philosophy, which hinges heavily on its “clear, loud cultural stance and pledge to honour its social responsibility,” says Belmer. The channel’s specific programming mix is simply not enough to convert viewers, it would appear. “We generate revenue from exclusive programmes, but also from our attractive image, an image that fits well with our consumers and makes them people who want to subscribe to more than the exclusive programmes,” says Belmer, a little loftily.So Canal+ viewers, it seems, are buying into rather more than just the first-to-TV cinema release movies and live sports programming. They value its anti-authority, extremely high-end tone.

Another key feature of Canal+, which also feeds into its marketing, is the fact that it makes a lot of its own programming, rather than just screening, say, the latest episodes of Mad Men or Desperate Housewives or the first TV showing of Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

“We have built an editorial pillar that we call ‘original creativity’ (créations originales). The fiction programmes we produce at Canal+ are both exclusive (because we made them) and statements about our identity (they encapsulate our editorial line),” says Belmer, adding, “Creating [content] builds more value than broadcasting. It boosts your brand image and exclusive value. That’s why it’s at the core of our communication strategy today and why working with BETC is so important.”

When BETC took over the account, the channel only communicated through print using purely programme-based campaigns. The agency then had the intuition that it should promote its highly specific editorial line rather than just the programmes, using TV spots to push the tone of the channel and the fact that it makes much of its own content rather than just being a straight broadcaster. Le Placard, or The Wardrobe, was a key TV commercial for the brand. This humorous 2009 ad, shot by Matthijs van Heijningen, depicted the far-fetched tale of how a guy (who we later learn is a Canal+ scriptwriter) ends up in the wardrobe of a man whose wife lies naked in bed nearby.

It was the first in a new series of ads to generically promote the channel’s original content and typically deployed a cinema-style scope and special effects to create an almost blockbusterstyle commercial. A major follow-up spot is planned for early 2011. Carlos was another homemade mini-series about the real-life Carlos the Jackal, “the terrorist who threatened the world”. Here the agency reverted to programme-specific advertising, but in a high-end, cinematic way, via a stunning, explosive commercial, Tick, directed by Wilfrid Brimo, which featured a slow-motion explosion of a bomb run backwards, to the point just before it exploded. The extended film was nominated at the Cannes Film Festival and was also sold to run worldwide rather than just in France, giving it huge exposure.

Other spots have also either focused on specific programmes or played comedically on different elements of filmmaking, such as Black Lines, which saw characters actually bumping into the black lines that appear at the top and bottom of a movie screen, and Visigoths, where Canal+ produces a movie that features a battle scene in which the actors actually die, such are its high standards and its desire to make everything as real as possible.

Stéphane Xiberras, president and ecd of BETC Euro RSCG, describes the overall creative strategy today: “The general idea is to make the communication a programme. Each message from Canal+ should offer a foretaste, like a sample of the channel. People should think that it’s the channel itself that produces its adverts, not an advertising agency. So we take great care that each communication perfectly conveys the channel’s editorial line.”

Belmer goes on to clarify the programming ethos further: “To build buzz for a brand, you have to create great programmes and you have to get them off the ground properly. When we released Carlos, we weren’t just airing a TV film: we started a stir, a milestone event that swept across France – and way beyond France. And that’s exactly what we want. When a programme becomes a cultural highlight, you can tell you have created value at a high level, so people have a legitimate reason to subscribe.”

The 10-year relationship between client and agency is partly due to the fact that Canal+ is “loyal”, says Belmer, and that it is “very happy” with the results, adding that the films have done a lot to make the channel “the channel that people in France want”. But the longevity of the relationship also goes deeper than this. “Canal+ is not an easy brand to understand,” he says. “It is extremely sophisticated and experience with our brand is one of the keys to understanding it. In other words, no matter how competent someone is, it takes time to soak up what our brand is really all about. That makes it hard to work with another agency. It is a long-term intellectual investment that naturally leads to long-term, first-class relationships.”

Xiberras agrees: “It would be absolutely impossible to achieve this degree of fusion between the communication and the brand if a rich, ongoing dialogue between Canal+ and BETC didn’t exist. We are increasingly involved upstream in the making of programmes, which is a wonderful vote of confidence and a fabulous opportunity for an agency like ours which, at this level, is also a content creator.”

The client team works extremely closely with BETC, always feeding through to the agency exactly what it wants them to put across rather than simply handing over total control. BETC, in turn, is brought in at a very early stage on each campaign, particularly when the campaign is going to be promoting a specific programme. “We start working on the full communication drive as soon as we start shooting our programmes,” says Belmer. “We show them the screenplay on the set so they can start thinking about it right from the start, right where it’s happening. Promoting those programmes is very important for us, to build up our audience and to create a sense of anticipation and excitement. That turns our programmes into cultural events. That’s our strategy.”

Directors queue up to say how prestigious it is to work with Canal+ and its agency. Van Heijningen, who shot Le Placard, says: “It was one of the best experiences I have ever had working on a commercial. When an idea is that clear and to the point you only talk about little details, how to finesse that idea on every level the best you can. That is always a treat, just fine tuning the details.” He adds that the client “left me completely on my own. For a director, that generates great confidence. I pitched my vision and they said, ‘do it’.”Van Heijningen goes on to say that Le Placard spot is now almost iconic for Canal+ and synonymous with it “because we grasped the soul of the brand with the ad. It’s funny, has action and a great twist.”

Wilfrid Brimo, who shot Tick, says of Canal+: “Working with this kind of client is a unique experience. It receives awards for its originality and creativity with every new campaign. It’s obvious you don’t find this kind of client often, but it also has something to do with the kind of long-standing relationship they have with the agency. You get a real feeling of freedom. They also gave us their complete trust from start to finish. It was rather exceptional to work that way, and fortunate because of how complicated it was production-wise.” The ads have won numerous awards, and notably not just in France.

Indeed, one of the channel’s distinctive features is that the campaigns have received awards from industry professionals both in France (it was named the first ever ‘client of the year’ by the French Art Director’s Club this summer, and was also voted the brand that people would most like to work on), and abroad (netting Cannes golds, Eurobest Grand Prix, D&AD Yellow Pencil and two gold Andys among many others). They are also among the campaigns that are most popular with the French public too: the March of the Emperor (a spot in which thousands of Napoleons – instead of Emperor penguins – are seen marching across frozen wastelands) was voted one of the top five favourite ads of all time by Libération newspaper in 2008, while they have also landed impressive effectiveness awards at Effie France and CBI.

Belmer is keen to emphasise the strength of teaming with BETC. “The partnership works very well. The results are there. From a human point of view, BETC and Canal+ have been working together for years: it’s been the same team running Canal+ and the same people at the agency working for us for all these years. They are part of the team here as much as the big producers working on our big shows,” he says.

Xiberras adds that he believes the two companies, agency and client, are helped by the fact that they share a similar structure. “I think that there are many similarities between the way Canal+ and BETC are organised. Here again, when the content creation unit and the customer relations unit know how to encourage each other, this creates a strong power of attraction between us,” he says.

And Xiberras’ favourite ad so far? Le Placard, he reveals. “I love this story. I love the way this ad was made by Matthijs [Van Heijningen]. It’s a commercial but it’s also real entertainment content. It’s pure BETC and at the same time it’s 100 per cent Canal+!” A perfect harmony between client and agency indeed.