Conservative government’s Canadian energy ads fail to impress in United States

OTTAWA – A new report says efforts by the Conservative government to sell Americans on the virtues of Canada’s natural resources haven’t impressed many south of the border.

A Harris-Decima report on a recent ad blitz by Natural Resources Canada, commissioned by the government, found focus groups in the U.S. capital befuddled by the campaign’s tagline — “America’s best friend is America’s best energy solution.”

The taxpayer-funded report found that the focus groups didn’t readily grasp that the campaign was referring to Canada.

Natural Resources Canada budgeted $9 million in the current 2012-13 fiscal year for the ads, dubbed the Responsible Resource Development campaign by the Harper government.

The ads depict a cross-section of resource industries in a job-friendly and environmentally sensitive light.

The Conservative government has spent years trying to convince Americans of the benefits of Canadian energy and Canada’s environmental record, particularly surrounding Alberta’s oilsands and the Keystone XL pipeline.

U.S. President Barack Obama is set to make a decision on the fate of the TransCanada project early next year.

But Americans in six focus groups in Washington, D.C., told Harris-Decima researchers that the ads, launched in February in the heat of the Keystone battle, could be “greatly improved” and lack a cohesive and direct message to the American public.