Jacques Bouchard is often called the father of Quebec advertising. Small wonder: The one-time Vickers & Benson translator of ad copy coming from Toronto, co-founded Montreal agency BCP – the first major francophone-run shop – and created Quebec’s first significant homegrown campaigns. Among his many other accomplishments, he convinced English Canadian marketers of the need for Quebec-only creative, helped found the Publicité Club de Montréal (PCM) and wrote a seminal book on what makes Quebecers different, Les 36 cordes sensibles des Québécois. Although he had been ailing for some time, his death on May 29 of cancer at age 75 came as a shock to many. Here are some thoughts on Bouchard’s influence from several of his counterparts in today’s Quebec ad community.

I did not know Jacques Bouchard on a particularly personal level. But as a student, an advertising practitioner and later a competitor of his agency, I have always nurtured a great sense of admiration for his accomplishments and contributions. Jacques Bouchard was a man of vision who had a sense of purpose. In his own way, he anthropomorphized the Quiet Revolution in the Canadian marketing and advertising community of the ’60s and early ’70s.

Throughout his career, Jacques Bouchard built a tremendous knowledge base regarding the Quebec consumer and the French Canadian citizen. From his Twin-bed Marketing Technique of the early ’60s to his famous “36 cordes sensibles” of the early ’70s, he truly lent legitimacy and credibility to Quebec regional marcom initiatives.

His influence on Canadian marketers and politicians far exceeds the impact of his own agency. In a sense, he paved the way for a new breed of entrepreneurs, the likes of Allard, Leveillé, Lessard, who in their own way reconfigured the value chain of the marcom industry in Quebec but also in Canada.

Jacques Bouchard has been a “point de repère” (reference point) for many commercial persuasion specialists in Quebec, the equivalent of a Raymond Rubicam, Bill Bernbach, David Ogilvy, Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet for Americans, Brits or the French. He has the impact of what these legends had on our advertising industry.

I had the opportunity to cross paths with Jacques Bouchard when I first joined BCP in 1989. At that time, Mr. Bouchard had retired, but he would come to the agency from time to time to chat with the creatives. His campaigns spoke tons. They were all over the walls of the agency, putting the pressure on, every day. They were award-winning, amazingly powerful campaigns. “Lui y connaît ça” for Labatt, “Pop-sac-à-vie…” for Caisses Desjardins, “Mon bikini, ma brosse à dent” for Air Canada and so on, were campaigns that were part of my childhood, but more importantly, I think they were part of Quebec’s childhood, part of a Quebec that was growing up and finding its voice through advertising.

England has David Ogilvy. France has Jacques Séguéla. Quebec has Jacques Bouchard. Never met the first two, but I wonder if they would have been as kind, as humble and as giving as Mr. Bouchard was to a young and very intimidated writer, like myself.

The Jack Kerouac of his time in advertising, Jacques Bouchard influenced the industry in Quebec’s 20th century. “Godfather of Quebec advertising,” he has been proclaimed. Advertising has been emancipated for some 40 years, and he played an important role in that era.

He invented Quebec creative. He launched an industry. He was the uncontested spiritual father of the entire profession. He let artists from here live in their chosen field. He was the artisan of the PCM. He sold his Twin-bed theory to the rest of the country. He defined our 36 defining traits, our differences, our commonalities. But, more than anything, he loved his profession with passion. And now that he’s gone, Jacques Bouchard would cherish only one dream – that we take up the challenge and continue with the same passion and confidence the work he humbly began and so brilliantly defended throughout his life.

(Translation of a statement by Gougoux in a full-page ad honouring Bouchard that appeared in the June 3, 2006 editions of La Presse, Le Journal de Montréal and Le Devoir.)

PIERRE ARTHUR, DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH AND MARKETING, LA PRESSE

I had the privilege to work directly with Jacques Bouchard for a few years and witnessed firsthand his genius and his creativity. We sometimes feared bringing Jacques into a client meeting because we could expect the unexpected. With hindsight, his intuition served him well, more than some of our research.

JACQUES DUVAL, PRESIDENT AND CEO, MARKETEL

The Twin-bed theory still exists. But if I use the same analogy, there are phases in a marriage. Sometimes it’s separate rooms, sometimes it’s separate beds, sometimes it’s the same bed. That’s what makes it interesting. In Montreal right now, we can create not only for Quebec but we create campaigns on an international scale. (Sometimes we) create national (campaigns) and sometimes it’s local. And basically that makes a very vibrant industry. The theory is not dogmatic – it’s not as if it’s that belief or die anymore. It’s part of the puzzle. It’s the way of life today. There’s no one-size-fits-all theory anymore, that’s for sure.

MITCH JOEL, PRESIDENT, TWIST IMAGE

I am 35 years old right now. To think that Jacques Bouchard was my age when he founded BCP is a little surreal. I didn’t know Bouchard. I never even met him. In fact, I have little in common with him…It takes a certain type of person to get an agency like BCP where it is today. It takes a certain kind of individual to help foster an image for what Québécois creativity truly is. People who are apathetic tend not to do things like be the co-founder of the Publicité Club de Montréal or create the Centre international de publicité sociétale and be one of the leads behind the concept of the Mondial de la publicité francophone. In the end, many people will eulogize the loss of Bouchard and what that means to the Quebec advertising community. I tend to honour the spirit by which he materialized his dreams and the magic that’s still around us and impacts us every day. That’s truly the only way to gauge one’s life and to leave a legacy.

DANIEL DEMERS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, OGILVY MONTREAL AND PRESIDENT, ASSOCIATION DES AGENCES DE PUBLICITE DU QUEBEC

Mr. Bouchard was a hell of a man. He really proved to everybody that we could do outstanding creative. And he did, in fact. He proved to all who doubted that a good spot, made originally in Quebec, is more stunning than other spots…At that time, it was a game between more adaptations from English Canada to French Canada. But today, it’s bigger than that. It was a problem of the ’50s. Today I would say it’s a worldwide phenomenon…

RICHARD LECLERC, PRESIDENT, PUBLICI-TERRE

I never had the good fortune to work with him, but I was greatly influenced by his work, his campaigns, his slogans and, most of all, his interest in social marketing and in major humanitarian causes. As the founder of Sociétal in 1981, he laid out the path for several creators like myself who have invested their time in social causes. He agreed, in the late ’90s, to sponsor the non-profit agency Publici-Terre.

Finally, in 2000, it was a great honour to receive personally from him a trophy for the contest that sports his name, for the slogan I created for the Salon des métiers d’art (an annual Christmas handicrafts show in Montreal): “Métiers d’art de vivre!” I believe he made advertising ‘un métier d’art de vivre…’ (a craft of the art of living).

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