Mallette: an advertising request that was really a positioning question
- Client
Mallette- Industry
- Accounting firm, advisory services
- My role
- External marketing strategy consultant
- Engagement
- 2026
- Result
- A reframed problem, and a brand architecture recommended to leadership
Mallette wanted to make its acquisition campaigns more profitable for its advisory services. I showed that the difficulty lay upstream, in how the market perceived the firm.
A better-tuned campaign won't make a message credible if the market doesn't believe it.
The context
Mallette is one of Quebec’s leading accounting firms. In 2026, the firm brought me in as an external consultant to diagnose its advisory services beyond traditional accounting, such as digital transformation and business strategy. It had invested to build these practices, without managing to make them visible to the clients it was targeting.
The challenge
The request was about advertising performance: converting more and getting a better return on acquisition spending. The expected answer was to optimize the campaigns and rework the landing pages.
The reframing
I showed that the problem was one of positioning. Fine-tuning the campaigns would only have spread an unconvincing message more efficiently.
The cause was a mismatch. The market sees the firm as an accounting institution, synonymous with rigor. Its cutting-edge practices needed to project something else to be taken seriously. The market didn’t see digital transformation experts; it saw an accounting firm that also offered other services. The order of the words changed everything.
The Brand Tax
To name this mismatch and make it actionable, I built a guiding concept: the Brand Tax. It refers to the credibility penalty a player pays as soon as it operates outside the territory where the market expects it.
For Mallette, this tax is zero on its core business. It becomes prohibitive as soon as the firm tries to establish itself in adjacent markets. Every difficulty observed was a symptom of it, and every recommendation aimed either to work around it in the short term or to eliminate it in the medium term.
My approach
I structured the diagnosis around the following levers.
Escaping the commoditization trap
The arguments put forward, method and rigor, are market standards. They reduced the offer to a price comparison and kept it from demonstrating its value.
Committing to a vertical
A generalist message pits the firm against the very largest consulting players. By speaking the specific language of an industry, it can become the expert, more agile alternative.
Rethinking the brand architecture
I recommended giving each practice its own voice and identity with its clientele, backed by the firm’s name as a mark of credibility. These services would stop looking like add-ons, and could generate their own inquiries.
Where the engagement stands
The engagement is at the strategic recommendation stage, delivered to leadership. This kind of work touches an organization’s public identity. It is decided at the top, and it requires bringing leaders on board with the diagnosis before mapping out next steps.
What this case shows
Before spending money to solve a problem, make sure you’re solving the right one. Here, the value lay in stepping back from the initial request, far more than in optimizing a channel. That is the perspective I bring as a marketing director.
Next case study: a headhunter recommended by AI.