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Theres a Kraft Heinz commercial running in Canada right now that is a perfect embodiment of the geopolitical moment between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. In it, the brand is celebrating its Canadian workers, and highlighting all the Canadian ingredients in its products like peanut butter, cheese, and Kraft Dinner. For context, in case you dont read the news: Since the election, President Trump has not only threatened and implemented trade tariffs on Canadian goods, but has added insult to injury by suggesting America’s longtime ally become its 51st state. This has not gone over well in Canada for obvious reasons. Thats why an American conglomerate like Kraft Heinz feels the need to clarify a few things. Sure, the cream cheese might be called Philadelphia, but ITS MADE IN MONTREAL with CANADIAN DAIRY, WE SWEAR. As a Canadian, it feels to me like the brand equivalent of my American friends turning to me during every commercial break of a hockey game to assure me they dont actually want to annex my country. Canadian to the core Of course, its not only American companies creating ads to hype how deep their Canadian connections are. This moment has given Canadian brands a chance to really fly their maple leaf flags to make sure we all know whos really from here. Thats important because Canadians buy more American-made goods than the U.K., France, Japan, and China combined. Yet a recent KPMG study found that 70% of Canadians would boycott U.S. products if President Trump implemented his 25% tariffs, while 80% are actively seeking non-U.S. alternatives when Canadian options arent available. The threats and tensions aren’t just theoretical: The Globe & Mail reported this week that cross-border travel is falling sharply: Statistics Canada reported that Canadians made 1.2 million fewer round-trip visits to the U.S. last month, which is 23% less than February 2024. Meanwhile, hotels in Maine are reporting a major drop in summer bookings, some as much as 90%. Peter Chapman, founder of consulting firm SKUFood and a former executive with Canadian grocery giant Loblaw, told The Canadian Press, Its by far the most dramatic and swiftest shift Ive seen in consumer behavior. Ian Westworth, Grey Canadas head of planning and effectiveness, wrote in Campaign recently that this shift in consumer behavior presents a significant opportunity for Canadian brands to align with this cultural moment and tap into a groundswell of national pride. This is an opportunity to build not just short-term momentum but also enduring consumer relationships, said Westworth. Halifax-based Moosehead Breweries is facing tariff impacts across its packaging supply chain, but managed to keep its sense of humor, creating a Presidential Pack of 1,461 beersone beer for every day of the next four years. It’s sold at least 10 of the $3,400 packs so far, and now has a waiting list. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Moosehead Breweries (@moosehead) Everyone up here, from the Prime Minister to Mike Myers, has been using the Elbows up mantra (it’s a hockey thing). And now brands from both countries have been forced to reconcile what that actually means for them. Flying the flag This isnt the first time a brand has aimed at the under-tapped resource that is Canadian national pride. Back in 2000, Molson Canadian created a spot called The Rant that featured a guy named Joe proudly dispelling what amounts to American stereotypes of Canada. Cheesy, sure, but it struck a very strong nerve. As loathe as we are to admit it, a sizable proportion of the Canadian identity is tied to all the various ways we arent American. Were often a nation stuck between the influences of a colonial past (Britain and France), and a pop culture present (America). Part of our contemporary identity is finding ways to move beyond this binary. Marvel star, and Toronto native, Simu Liu leaned into our unique brand of multiculturalism when he hosted the 2022 Juno awards (Canadas Grammys) and re-created his own rant: I grew up on ketchup chips, roti, and Jamaican beef patties . . . Thats about as Toronto as you can get. Like any emphasis on buying local, or touting Made in the USA stateside, brands have long used their connection to Canada as a marketing device here. But this time its different. It feels like all at once, every marketer in Canada is a maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving hoser. Some are doing it by adding phrases like Proudly Canadian or Canadian Made to their labels. Others are creating full ad campaigns. Maple Leaf Foods recently launched a partnership with other Canadian brands urging people to look for the leaf on grocery products. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Maple Leaf Foods (@mapleleaffoods) Grocery giant Loblaws has created a black T label to highlight products impacted by the new American tariffs. Retailer Canadian Tire dropped a spot to reiterate its roots, while using harsh winds as a nod to the current political and economic climate. The Canadian Forces even has a spot that could weirdly double as a tourism ad, encouraging Canadians to be maple-leaf buying, local adventuring in their spending habits. Graham Candy, chief strategy officer at Toronto-based ad agency Angry Butterfly, is expecting to see more marketers join the chorus. “We feel like this is just the beginning of what we are going to see out there from a political and marketing comms perspective,” says Candy. “We expect to see bolder messages, more pride, potentially more anger and stronger ‘Us versus Them’ messaging.” Personally, I’m just waiting for Nestlé to finally announce a brand partnership with Shoresy for its Canadian-made Drumsticks ice cream treat. Same rules apply For some marketers, wrapping their brands in the flag may work perfectly well. For others, its a mistake. In so many ways, the current situation between Canada and the U.S. is unprecedented. But the solution for marketers is actually still rooted in the best practices of a modern brand: know what your core values are and use that as the lens through which you communicate with your audience. Plenty of brands in Canada will jump on this patriotic bandwagon, but the ones who find success will be those who have built their Canuck credentials over time. Just as brands that decide to aim attention at a particular cultural nichewhether anime fans, surfers, or Swiftiestheir actions need to be true to who they are or else the brand will be called out and, ultimately, unsuccessful in reaching that audience. American and international companies that have built the strongest brand connections to their Canadian consumers will ultimately weather the tariff storm, and it wont be because of some haphazard flag-waving. That said, Diageo should probably start re-airing its 2023 Crown Royal Super Bowl ad immediately.
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It can be difficult to assert yourself during a negotiation. You may feel emotional about the process, especially if you are countering a lower offer than you expected or are nervous about being up against a seasoned negotiator. Or perhaps you’re uncomfortable with the idea of selling yourself to a potential employer or partner. Whatever the case may be, your approach to negotiations could be working against you. The best way to make sure you don’t botch a negotiation is to prepare for it in advance, writes Lydia Fenet, a leading charity auctioneer and expert in selling and negotiations. That can involve using friends and family to practice how a negotiation may unfold. “To win a negotiation you need to play out as many different scenarios as possible before you sit down, so you are prepared for any angle,” she adds. When you are preparing for a tricky conversationwhether you’re hammering out a job offer or discussing a potential partnershiphere are a few negotiation tips you should keep in mind: What not to say There are a few phrases that Fenet says you should steer clear of during any negotiation, to avoid unintentionally weakening your position. “If you begin a negotiation by asking, ‘Is it okay if I ask for . . . ?’ you have made me the authority, which gives me the upper hand,” she writes. Framing the question this wayor even explicitly asking if the salary figure you have proposed is too highcan indicate a lack of confidence, making it more difficult to negotiate effectively. It’s also important to set a number ahead of time that you won’t go below, so that you’re willing to walk away if the negotiation does not land where you were hoping. “By thinking this through before the negotiation, you should feel confident you wont give away more than you want or accept less than you should in the heat of negotiation,” Fenet says. Since employers will expect you to drive a hard bargain, you should put a number forward without second-guessing yourself or questioning whether it’s too high. Don’t keep talking Sometimes, less is more when you are navigating a negotiation. You might struggle to sit in silence after sharing your salary requirements if, say, an employer does not immediately respond to your proposal. If youre highly agreeable, you like to keep things moving forward, says leadership coach René Rodriguez. You may not trip over little details, and you may agree to a lower price. Someone who isnt as agreeable may stop the negotiation right away and demand a higher pay. But silence can be a powerful tactic during a negotiationparticularly if you’re the kind of person who tends to overexplain or feels the need to justify your demands. In fact, it’s a strategy that employers may use to gain the upper hand during a negotiation. By holding your ground, however, you can force the person you’re negotiating with to speak first. How to follow up What you do after a successful negotiation is also a key part of getting the outcome you want. After all, as Fenet writes, a negotiation is “not done until the contract is signed.” It’s crucial to close the loop so you make sure that what you discussed is finalized. That said, there are times when you know a negotiation is unlikely to pan out. Maybe there isn’t room in the budget or the partnership just isn’t a good match. Even so, it can be worthwhile to create rapport with the person across the table. “Remember, life is long,” Fenet writes. “People change jobs, and budgets come and go; but if people walk out of a negotiation feeling like they made a connection, they will still be your first call.”
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking to investors last week, Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe said that the spring 2025 selling season for Americas second-largest homebuilder is off to a slower-than-normal start. We do not see the seasonal pickup typically associated with the beginning of the spring selling season,” Jaffe said. “So we continue to lean into our machine focusing on converting leads and appointments and adjusting incentives as needed to maintain sales pace. These adjustments came in the form of mortgage rate buydowns, price reductions, and closing cost assistance. Last quarter, Lennar spent the equivalent of 13% of home sales on buyer incentivesup from 1.5% in Q2 2022 at the height of the pandemic housing boom. A 13% incentive on a $400,000 home translates to $52,000 worth of incentives. This weaker housing demand environment is causing unsold inventory to tick up. Indeed, since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out, the number of unsold completed new single-family homes in the U.S. has been rising: February 2018: 63,000 February 2019: 75,000 February 2020: 77,000 February 2021: 39,000 February 2022: 31,000 February 2023: 70,000 February 2024: 88,000 February 2025: 119,000 The February figure (119,000 unsold completed new homes) published this week is the highest level since July 2009 (126,000). Lets take a closer look at the data to better understand what this could mean. To put the number of unsold completed new single-family homes into historic context, we created a new index: ResiClubs Finished Homes Supply Index. The index is one simple calculation: The number of unsold completed new single-family homes in the U.S. divided by the annualized rate of U.S. single-family housing starts in the U.S. A higher index score indicates a softer national new construction market with greater supply slack, while a lower index score signifies a tighter new construction market with less supply slack. If you look at unsold completed single-family new builds as a share of single-family housing starts (see chart below), it still shows we’ve gained slack; however, it puts us closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels than the 2008 housing bust. While the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t give us a greater market-by-market breakdown on these unsold new builds, we have a good idea where they are based on total active inventory homes for sale (including existing homes) that spiked above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Most of those areas are in the Sun Belt around the Gulf. Some builders are facing pricing pressureespecially in key Florida and Texas markets, where resale supply is also well above pre-COVID norms, Dillan Krieg, an analyst at John Burns Research and Consulting, recently wrote on LinkedIn. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r
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