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National Marketing – A New Year and a New Outlook
 At the recent FDFA Convention, during the FDFA Operator's meeting, the operator members agreed that the national marketing program would become a core priority for the association, since the completion of the pilot project was complete. With internet marketing being so critical in today's business and consumer environment, and to address the consumer misconceptions of the Canadian duty free industry – the operator's agreed that now is the time to evolve and generate more awareness of who we are as an industry on an ongoing basis. For those who have not seen the new website, please do go to www.dutyfreecanada.com.
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What is ahead for the marketing program in 2012?
During the pilot project, the FDFA employed Beakbane Retail Marketing to create our website, branding and social media platform. With Beakbane Marketing's contract concluding in 2011, the FDFA conducted an extensive RFP with national marketing companies to assess if our marketing needs could be maximized more effectively with another firm. As such, we are now working with a company based in Toronto and Montreal called OSL Marketing.
Who is OSL?
OSL Marketing is today one of Canada's largest privately held agencies. Their clients include National Bank of Canada, Agropur, PepsiCo, Conagra, LG Electronics, Vincor, YUM! Restaurants and Maple Leaf Foods, but they have a host of smaller clients like the FDFA where by OSL manages integrated communications. With fully staffed offices in Mississauga, Ontario and downtown Montreal, OSL boasts a staff of 85 people with expertise in digital, promotional and direct marketing.
OSL was founded 22 years ago in Montreal, with two of the original founders, Robert Otis and Claude Leger, still very much hands-on in the company. The entrepreneurial spirit that has successfully driven the growth of OSL is what attracted us to OSL – they are a very results focused group that have committed to helping us attain our traffic and awareness targets.
Mike Duncan, Managing Partner at OSL Toronto has stated "the FDFA is the type of client that we feel can fully leverage our marketing and technical strengths. Additionally, we hope to bring great learnings to the FDFA group of owner-operators as we explore and build on larger partner programs that we drive traffic and volume."
 During the upcoming Semi-Annual meeting this February, Mr. Jeremy Wright of OSL will be introducing OSL to the operator/owner members and discussing some of their upcoming marketing plans for the FDFA marketing initiative. Mr. Wright is OSL's Vice President, Digital & Strategic Insight.
Jeremy Wright is a longtime serial entrepreneur who has been involved with the business, marketing, and IT aspects of the technology industry for nearly two decades. Jeremy's focus and agency experience have been around digital and ensuring clients get the best results – not just the prettiest campaigns. He was the CEO, President and Co-Founder of b5media, Inc, a prominent blog network and author of Blog Marketing, the first business book on social media. Jeremy is a biker, karaoke fan and father to his two wonderful boys, Evan and Alex.
The FDFA will be working with OSL to develop a clear plan for 2012 that will greatly benefit all of our members – as we continue to showcase Canadian duty free to consumers. In March 2012, the FDFA will highlight to all of our members via the communiqué some of the upcoming marketing plans that have been agreed upon.
http://www.oslmarketing.com/default.aspx
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