Canadian Tire is an important brand to work on in Canadian advertising.
This brand produces a lot of work, and it all has to meet a very high standard. I was fortunate to spend years on this account, first as a copywriter, and then as its creative director. I've produced over 80 commercials just for Canadian Tire.
Bring It On was the strongest performing campaign Canadian Tire has ever had. The creative reflects the tough and tenacious spirit of Canadians, and that no one prepares us for life in our rugged landscape like Canadian Tire. Through extreme weather from one season to the next, this is the one brand Canadians rely on to get them through it all. We had many talented teams working on this creative.
Before the 'Bring it On' campaign was this one, 'For Days Like Today'.
The construct allowed our teams to stretch creatively and keep the Canadian Tire brand feeling fresh for consumers.
The Canadian Tire 'House of Innovation' is a simple concept: Canadian Tire buys an actual house in Canada. Then we fix it up and showcase innovative ways to live life in Canada using smart products from Canadian Tire. The house served as a content production facility where we shot hundreds of videos inside and around it. All this content was served up and searchable on the House of Innovation web and mobile site.
Comments on the products and links back to the Canadian Tire website made this a handy research tool for consumers and a serious selling tool for the brand. This program won a lot of digital and brand innovation awards.
This was our first campaign for Canadian Tire. Since I was a kid, the brand had been notorious for producing terrible advertising. When the poor campaign spokesman was featured on the cover of Canadian news magazine 'Maclean's' with the title, 'The Age of the Wuss', we all knew it was time to create something completely different.
This work was awarded in all the local shows and Applied Arts magazine. Credit goes to Joseph Bonnici for creating the ubiquitous 'Aisle Sign' device. The campaign was so popular in Canada that people were always asking when the next Canadian Tire commercial was coming out, even years after this campaign ended.