Global brands aiming to access new markets, to introduce new products and services as well as develop innovative campaigns are faced with risky, expensive and complex operations. Today’s Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) must deal with market globalization. They are under constant pressure to optimize investments. In addition, CMOs must rethink creative products and advertising investments as well as account for the new role played by digital technology. In this new reality, where mistakes can be fatal, advertisers are dreaming of finding new ways to test novel advertising combinations. The goal is to discover and test new methods that reliably predict success or failure.

The YUL-LAB fulfills new needs. It was created to reinvent advertising. A unique experimentation lab, it was designed for international brands to help them develop new predictive and reliable advertising models that will later be exported. The Lab allows global brands to test all possible advertising combinations because it converts ideas into reality while measuring results and predicting success. The lab optimizes Montreal as a cultural microcosm and provides advertisers with a realistic environment for experimenting new advertising models that can later be reproduced anywhere in the world.

Metropolitan Montreal is unique. It is home to an infinite range of media opportunities. It is founded on human and material capabilities, academic and intellectual resources as well as creative resources that allow experimentation with target groups that represent numerous cultures and languages. Montreal possesses all the essential assets of a perfect human laboratory to help brands build predictive advertising models. For example:

1. Montreal’s media environment is overdeveloped.
2. Montreal is a mainstream market with its own star system, and is close to major brands’ international headquarters.
3. Montreal is an isolated market where experiments can be performed in a controlled environment.
4. Montreal allows investment optimization while experimenting at low cost.
5. Montreal is renowned for its cultural effervescence, which nurtures great creativity. It abounds in world-class strategic and creative advertising talent.

The Yul-Lab is the principle commercial offer of montreal.ad, the online portfolio of Quebec’s 65 advertising agencies. As such, it provides advertisers with a custom-made destination to experiment and develop new advertising models for export. The Lab also provides brands with important additional direct benefits:

1. Media inventory : preferential and competitive rates (TV, radio, printed, out-of-home, web, etc.) that were pre-negotiated with Quebec’s largest media and research groups;
2. Efficiency, flexibility and timeliness: excellent return on investment (ROI) through low-cost trials, timeliness and flexibility, as well as world-class talents at a competitive price;
3. Multidisciplinary services:a collaborative environment made up of experienced multidisciplinary teams ready to work with advertisers (advertising agencies, production companies, research firms, media groups, marketing and business consulting firms, photographers, graphic designers, etc.);
4. Research and follow-up: access to top professional resources, marketing research and tracking products that were pre-developed for this kind of initiative;
5. Straightforward hosting structure: a single point-of-entry.

1. Become a new advertiser in Montreal, or launch a new project;
2. Demonstrate the research and/or development nature of a project;
3. Obtain the approval of a committee composed of representatives from the Association of Quebec Advertising Agencies (AQAA), the advertiser, its agency and media outlets.

Montréal.ad/Association of Quebec Advertising Agencies
Yanik Deschênes, President and General Manager
Phone: 1 514 848-1732, ext. 203, or 1 877 878-1732
E-mail address: y.deschenes@aapq.ca
Fax: 514 848-1950
2015, Peel St., Suite 925
Montreal, Québec
Canada H3A 1T8