Joe Fresh feels the Trudeau boost
Retailer releases Facebook ad promoting PM’s family’s style
OTTAWA— It often feels like Canada’s glamorous first family are living in an advertisement. Well, now they really are.
Canadian clothing retailer Joe Fresh took advantage this week of an unintended celebrity endorsement, promoting the fact the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s eldest children, Xavier and Ella-Grace, were sporting the company’s designs on centre stage at the Parliament Hill Canada Day festivities.
After Trudeau’s official photographer posted the pictures on the prime minister’s official Flickr site, the company lifted the image and used it in a paid-for Facebook post, though not before editing out Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly and Sharon Johnston, the wife of Gov. Gen. David Johnston.
“We’re happy and honoured the Trudeau family kids, Xavier and Ella-Grace, celebrated the Canada Day weekend in Joe Fresh,” the July 5 posting said.
The celebrity endorsement is a tried-and-true marketing tactic that many companies will use to get consumers looking at their product. Joe Fresh spokesperson Nicole Plener wouldn’t say outright that this was the company’s intent.
“We’re always pleased when Canadians choose to wear Joe Fresh, including the Trudeau family,” the director of public relations Nicole Plener said in a statement.
The Prime Minister’s Office said it has no problem with the company’s actions and that no permission is necessary for using PMO photographs, which are paid for by the government rather than the Liberal Party of Canada, said deputy director of communications Olivier Duchesneau.
“The prime minister and his family are photographed at public events on a regular basis and many of those pictures are posted on social media by various organizations and individuals,” he said.
The Trudeaus, like other political couples, have frequently used the attention given to them to showcase Canadian companies and causes that are close to their hearts.
During a recent trip for G7 meetings in Japan, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau wore custom-made green onyx earrings by Toronto-based designer Dean Davidson.
He described them as being inspired by a traditional Japanese hand fan in an Instagram posting.
Toronto designer Lucian Matis’s social media feed is littered with photographs of the Trudeaus, including one of Grégoire Trudeau wearing one of his dress designs with U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, during a visit to Washington and another dress that she wore in Japan.
Even that most Canadian of clothing companies, Roots, resorted to the same marketing tactic when Toronto rapper Drake appeared recently on Saturday Night Live wearing one of its custom-made jackets.
Grégoire Trudeau’s promotion of Canadian designers and style would appear to be at another level though. So active is she that there is a dedicated Instagram account that is described as being “dedicated to the fashion, beauty and life of Canada’s newest leading lady, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, and her family.”
The visibility the Trudeaus allow for their three children, including the youngest, Hadrien, is perhaps more surprising, given the prime minister’s own experience growing up in the spotlight both in good times and in bad.
The Trudeau kids were front and centre during the federal election campaign, Xavier was there for the official wave this week when dad and a plane load of political staff and military officials and reporters departed for the NATO summit in Poland, Ella-Grace has paddled the Rouge River in a photo op with mom and dad, while she and Hadrien accompanied their folks on an official trip to Malta last November, much to the joy of the photographers following along
The exposure that the children have received is unlike anything that former prime minister Stephen Harper’s children, Ben and Rachel, received, and seems likely to ensure that the Trudeau kids will be as well known to Canadians as Justin and his brothers, Alexandre and the late Michel, were when they were youngsters.