Summary:
Northlake Financial was a Canadian automotive financing company specializing in prime and subprime loans. Founded in 2021 by Brooke and Tim Tremain as the Canadian expansion of U.S.-based Westlake Financial, Northlake provided financing solutions to dealers powered by its proprietary technology, which helped customers achieve real-time approvals. Northlake was a business-to-business (B2B) lender and had two main consumer groups: independent and franchised dealerships. In March 2026, Brooke committed to an ambitious goal of growing Northlake tenfold by 2031. She identified four marketing opportunities to help support this goal. The alternatives included upgrading the Mailchimp plan, launching a dealer referral program, attending five automotive conventions, or hiring a sales representative focused on franchised dealerships. Students must conduct an internal and external analysis, identify a target consumer for growth, evaluate competitors, and recommend a comprehensive promotional strategy rooted in qualitative and quantitative implications. This marketing case is designed for introductory business classes at the undergraduate level.
Northlake Financial: Shifting Into High Gear
Author: Richard S. Bloomfield and Mya Todosijevic
Category:
Marketing
Preamble:
This case was written with the support of research assistants, Alexandra Sofroniou, Cecilia Darling and Addison Lumbard, and was edited by Joe Gilvesy and Katie Oates. Final production of this note was made possible by Ryan Rabie from the Library and Learning Services team at Huron University. The authors' intent for this material is to be used in a classroom or other management learning settings. Names or other identifying information may be altered to protect confidentiality.
Published 09-04-2026
Copyright:
This content is freely available without charge to readers and their institutions. All content is published under the Creative Commons License, Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Readers are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of this case without seeking prior permission from the author(s).
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