Apparently I stirred the pot a little bit when I was in Toronto. Yahoo invited me to give a breakfast talk to the handful of Canadian advertisers and I managed to hijack the session for 10 to 15 minute rant about how Canadians don't get search. I quickly followed this up with a column in the SearchInsider to the same effect. I did make one mistake. I did mention that the Ontario government doesn't do search for their official tourism information site. I was quickly corrected in that. There is in fact the search campaign going on. It just wasn't registering for any of the searches I did. I think I'll follow up on this a little more for next week's SearchInsider column.
I apologize to show chair Andrew Goodman for breaking the cardinal Canadian rule of politeness. Andrew is shipping a case of generic cola with a Canadian politeness serum cleverly mixed in to try to return me to the accepted norms for Canadian behavior. I noticed another blogger who picked up on my rant indicated that as a Canadian living in the US, I would be well advised to escape back south of the border. I don't know if this is good news for Canadian advertisers or not, but I actually am a resident Canadian. I call Kelowna, B.C. home.
You know, the funny thing is, other than poor Nick at the Ontario Tourism Board who I mistakenly said had his head up his ass, most everyone else has agreed with me. Perhaps being a cranky Canadian pays off. To my knowledge there's nobody who really is filling this role currently, although Canadians have a long tradition of being cranky. Notable cranky Canadians in the past included Gordon Sinclair, Pierre Berton and Jack Webster.
If it makes you feel any better, Canadian advertisers weren't the only ones I turn my sights on in the past week. I also took a few shots at Yahoo during an interview on Bloomberg TV. Maybe it's the fact that I've been traveling for past 2 1/2 months and I think the last time I actually got seven hours of uninterrupted sleep was back in March. This weekend I think I'll have a stiff shot of Canadian whiskey (we call it rye up here), have a good night's sleep and maybe I'll come back next week kinder, gentler and more polite. Or not.