CALGARY, Alberta—FYidoctors, an optometrist-owned and operated optical and eyecare company based here, is rebranding its more than 45 locations in Quebec under the “Visique” banner in a move that is central to an overall repositioning initiative. Company executives told dba the repositioning is designed to bring in the elements of top-level fashion and vision care under the Visique name, while also presenting an image that changes consumers’ overall perception of optical retailing.

“It’s a change in mindset,” FYidoctors president and chief executive officer Alan Ulsifer, OD, said in an interview late last month. Ulsifer said the new branding and positioning is “really a reinvention of the Quebec story, and also moving toward a medical-diagnostic model, as well.”

Chief marketing officer and FYidoctors board member Arlene Dickinson said a new French tagline is attached to the Visique name, “Voir la vie,” which loosely translates as “See Life Clearly.” She said new Visique banners began going up in Quebec in mid-June. A new Visique website also launched in late June and it focuses on the “care” and “wear” aspects of optical that Visique wants to highlight. “[We] want to make sure that people understand that we are a retailer of fashion eyewear as well as being all about eyecare,” Dickinson said.

While there were about 45 Visique locations in Quebec as of late June, FYidoctors expects this number to grow to almost 50 by summer’s end. These Quebec offices that are being rebranded became part of FYidoctors, for the most part, through acquisitions and were operating under 21 different banners across Quebec, Ulsifer said.

Other FYidoctors’ locations across Canada also will incorporate some elements of the new strategic repositioning program, but a decision on rebranding those 150 additional offices under the Visique name has not been made, Ulsifer explained.

In addition, a mass media advertising campaign across Canada is planned to break in mid- to late August to support the launch of the new positioning and strategy. The television ads in Quebec will be distinct from advertising for existing FYidoctors locations in other parts of Canada. Ulsifer said one of the goals of the new advertising is to “change the thinking around what eyecare and optical are in the eyes of the consumer.”


FYidoctors has locations all across Canada
FYidoctors operates 203 corporate-owned Canadian locations and also works with 85 Vision Source franchisees in Canada. Visique is a “hybrid name,” but one that reflects the company’s effort to reposition itself around the elements of fashion, vision and boutique approach, Dickinson said. “We’re super excited about what this is going to mean,” she added. “Now we are going to basically have one brand in Quebec, which is a very important market for us.”

Dickinson, whom Ulsifer calls the “architect of the brand relaunch,” is a highly respected marketing executive. She has 30 years of strategic marketing experience and perhaps is best known for her role as a venture capitalist on CBC’s Dragons’ Den TV show (a precursor to CNBC’s Shark Tank). She has been a FYidoctors’ director since 2015.

Dickinson said FYidoctors conducted market research, focus-group meetings and other testing while considering “a variety of different names.” She added, “This was the name that resonated across the country. People related to this and they took away a variety of different things, [for example] we are a contemporary place for you to get your eyes taken care of with technology and the credibility of the doctors’ perspective.”

The repositioning also includes some new operational elements as well as a few tweaks to FYidoctors’ assortment of frames, Ulsifer said. He noted that the company will “ramp up the brands that we carry [and] go to some more luxury brands.” He said they also want to retain a strong assortment of “value” offerings and emphasize the current fashion-forward product.

“Frames are getting commoditized and what we wanted to do was to make sure that we are attaching the importance of good eyecare to great eyewear,” he explained. “That connection is what we feel is very important.”

FYidoctors also has added to its senior management team over the past few months and invested to upgrade its technology platform across the company. There also are plans to roll out an enhanced Omni channel offering that will be in place by the end of the year, Ulsifer said.

As for the possibility of expanding the company’s footprint in Canada and moving into the U.S. market, Ulsifer told dba FYidoctors has “ramped up the size of our acquisition team” and that management has been reviewing growth opportunities.