The assignment from caffeine retailer Van Houtte to Speed Promotions was to position the brand as Quebec’s coffee expert extraordinaire. The Toronto-based agency came up with a strategy ‘similar to how fine wines are marketed by the SAQ and LCBO,’ including linking superior coffee to upscale food choices, Speed GM Jan Ferguson tells MiC.

The agency’s solution? Creating a single-issue magazine called Café Passion. More than one million copies were produced and inserted earlier this month in dailies La Presse, Le Soleil and The Gazette, for which Speed handled the media buys. The remaining copies are now being handed out free of charge in supermarkets and at Van Houtte bistros in la belle province.