Crossposted from the propaganda thread, where I originally published it:
Advertisement poster for the 2004 rebranding relaunch of the
Putin Poutine ! fast food chain, popular particularly in the eastern provinces of Canada. After the 2004 relaunch, the chain renamed itself to
Uncle Volodya's, to capitalize on the popularity of the company's CEO and mascot, Uncle Volodya Poutine (civilian birth name Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin).
The Putin family emigrated to Canada from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and settled down in Quebec. They eventually started doing business with their own little restaurant. While struggling at first, they took a liking to the increasingly popular, locally invented recipes - among them poutine - and decided to experiment with hybridizing them with traditional Russian recipes or ingredients. The restaurant's unique approach helped it to quickly build up a good reputation throughout all of Montreál, leading to the eventual opening of a chain of local restaurants. Utilising the lucky resemblance of their surname to the name of the Canadian fries-based dish, the Putins christened the chain
Putin Poutine (the
! was added in the 1980s, as part of an effort to make the chain's branding "more hip"). In the following decades, the growing company expanded throughout the entire province of Quebec, and then into the maritimes and even Ontario. Despite the economic slump the company experienced in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the 2004 rebranding seems to have done the trick. As the optimistic slogan of the rebranding campaign promised, the characteristic "
oh so Russian flavour... on very Quebecois poutine !" has been preserved and further improved.
Uncle Volodya's is now as popular as ever...
(OOC: Yeah, I know, terrible pun - but how could I resist ?
Besides, Putin as a Canadian poutine chain tycoon is one of the funniest ideas for a "Richard Nixon, used car salesman" scenario I've had in a long time.
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