24hr Production: A Brand Marketing Podcast · Gary Chan

A Promotional Distributor Look at the Canada-U.S. Tariffs

·25 min·1 clip

The tariff is suspended now, but March 12th is the date they say it may be firmed up.

Gary and Melissa keep the opening easygoing. They say they could talk about promotional products, branding management, and digital marketing, but they land on the Canada-U.S. trade war because it has been building since the end of 2024 and feels especially close to home for a product-based company. The issue is messy. They connect the tariffs to the pressure on Canadian and U.S. companies trying to navigate Trump-era policies. The conversation stays grounded. Instead of resting on headlines, they keep coming back to what happens when trade policy runs into products, labels, suppliers, and client decisions all at once. Melissa brings in an app. She says she downloaded it from the site, opened it on her phone, and scanned a bag of chips to see whether the product was Canadian. The app is helpful, but not complete. They explain that it depends on users adding information, so it does not know everything, even if it can still point shoppers toward the country of origin when labels are unclear. The grocery store becomes the test case. Melissa describes scanning item after item while people looked at her, and she comes away noticing that some groceries are made in Canada while others are not. The shelf tells a wider story than the label. They note that products not made in Canada are not automatically made in the United States, since goods also come from places like Peru and Mexico. Costco gets a mention. Melissa says Costco is now putting up signs that say products are made in Canada, which makes the origin question more visible in a store that moves fast and sells in volume. The conversation keeps circling the same problem. They call the whole thing convoluted, because a red label on one product does not explain every item in the basket or every sourcing choice behind it. The ending stays straightforward. Gary and Melissa close by inviting listeners to connect with them on LinkedIn or through the podcast landing page on the website.

As heard by us

Tariffs and labels are treated as real business problems, not abstract politics.

This episode treats tariffs as a practical problem for a product-based business, not a distant policy debate. Gary and Melissa keep circling back to the difficulty of telling what is Canadian-made and what is not, along with the way product labels and store signage are being…

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Why you'd press play

You get the Canada-U.S. tariff fight as a grocery-store scavenger hunt, with a phone app and shelf labels doing the explaining.

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