GDoes ilbert Montagné know that one of his hits, We are going to love each other, help a small grocer in the south of Mayenne to sell packets of apple shortbread? This is happening in Bierné, a large town of 700 people with four businesses still standing, including Hugo Mocques’ mini-market. This 50-year-old trader has made a specialty of hijacking famous songs in order to promote items sold at his home. Several times a week, the Vivéco manager grabs a bag of chips or a shower gel from his shelves and films himself modifying the words of well-known tunes. For Gilbert Montagné, this gives: “Apple shortbread with Brittany butter in four fresh sachets/Delights from Belle France, there is nothing better/We eat them at any time/Apple shortbread, apple shortbread…”
Hundreds of videos of this type populate his TikTok account, created in June 2022. Wax doll, sound doll (France Gall) is parodied for the benefit of braided buns; Beat it (Michael Jackson) extols the virtues of razor blades; It goes away and it comes back (Claude François) praises the virtues of cappuccino pods… No risk, for the leading grocer, of being sued by the brands mentioned: most of the time he uses the advertising arguments of the packaging packets to write his texts. His goal: to bring customers to him and defend, between two videos, the vitality of small businesses in rural areas.
In another life, at the turn of his 20s, Hugo Mocques was a singer. He performed covers for village festivals or New Year’s Eves. In yet another life, he was a salesman for an auto parts company. Until a serious burnout, seven years ago, which pinned him to the ground. “I had become a human wreck, I who was more of an electric battery”, he says. In 2019, the grocer from Bierné, where he lives, decided to sell his business. He jumped at the opportunity and applied to this small 85 square meter warehouse a method proven in his previous profession: trading.
Like a challenge
Since then, he has spent hours with his suppliers to obtain discounts and lower margins, purchasing quantities far in excess of his customers’ needs in order to benefit from advantageous prices. The only constraint: he must store entire pallets of laundry detergent or olive oil on the uninhabited floors of his premises or in a room lent by the town hall. His approach allows him to sell the kilo of potatoes “at the same price [1 euro] than at Lidlhe saidexcept that mine are produced locally.” Or to offer different “anti-inflation baskets” for 20 euros, like this assortment of meats (stuffed cabbage, Orloff paupiettes, crepinettes, chipolatas) that are being snapped up around the world.
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