Claiming that Canadian Tire offers unmatched product innovation with conventional advertising was not an option. We needed to walk the talk! We developed a unique sponsorship program with the iconic show Dragon's Den. It was the perfect advertising solution to reinforce that Canadian Tire offers more innovative products than any of its competitors. We offered a distribution deal to two lucky entrepreneurs. The morning after airing of the show, their products were featured in the 500+ Canadian Tire stores with point-of-purchase displays with the shows’ branding. What a great way to change the perception that omnichannel retailers cannot be agile.

Canadian Tire is one of Canada’s leading mass retailers. It sells everything from pots and pans to tools and hardware. To differentiate itself from its competitors, Canadian Tire taps into innovation. In the fast pace world of retail, being the first to offer new products is key to winning the consumer’s purchase.

To win new consumers in a mature market, we first analyzed Canadian Tire’s loyalty database. By comparing sales generated from new and innovative products to those items that have been on shelves for more than two years, we realized that innovation drove results in three different meaningful ways:

1. It drove net new customers in store.

2. It increased the lifetime value of current customers.

3. It increased affinity with the Canadian Tire brand, which is valuable in the undifferentiated market of mass retail.

Claiming that Canadian Tire offers unmatched product innovation with conventional advertising was not an option. We needed to walk the talk! We developed a program as innovative as the products sold by Canadian Tire in its 506 stores across the country.

To win the innovation game, we had to:

1- Find a way to “scout” the newest and most innovative products, much faster than our competitors.

2- Prove that Canadian Tire could make these products available for consumer purchase in record time and change the perception that pure e-comm players (Amazon and the likes) were faster to market new products and innovation.

We developed a unique partnership with one of the most iconic Canadian TV shows, Dragons’ Den, that went well beyond the typical media sponsorship or content integration. The show features entrepreneurs making business presentations to a panel of five investors, the so-called “dragons”. It is a place for fierce entrepreneurs to pitch their new products and find resources to grow their businesses.

Canadian Tire offered a distribution deal to entrepreneurs live on the show. Guaranteed distribution of their products in Canadian Tire’s 500+ stores across Canada was an opportunity that no investor could match!

To be fully distributed the morning after the show was a challenge. It usually takes a year to get new products from the drawing board to store shelves. We came up with creative solutions with the Store Operations department of Canadian Tire to fast track product availability and integrate owned media assets.

We created a viewing room on the set of Dragons’ Den where Greg Hicks, Canadian Tire’s President, could watch while entrepreneurs pitched their ideas to the Dragons. When the product was ground-breaking, Greg had the option to offer a distribution deal in every Canadian Tire stores and ecommerce channels. There were two lucky entrepreneurs that were awarded this life-changing distribution deal. All of this content was integrated to the Dragons’ Den storyline, not in commercial time.

To reinforce the connection between Dragons’ Den and Canadian Tire, we launched a fully integrated campaign including TV, digital, social, as well as integration to the Dragons’ Den’s website. The new products were promoted with every Canadian Tire’s owned channel: Canadiantire.ca, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. They were featured in the Canadian Tire flyer delivered to an average of 15MM+ households every week.

Finally, the news products were featured in-store the morning after the show!

This program delivered the expected results and much more!

From a perception perspective, we saw an increase of 12% of Canadians who think that Canadian Tire is an innovative company.

Furthermore, there is a 17% increase of Canadians that think Canadian Tire carries the latest products.

Canadian Tire chose their products wisely. Customers had nothing but praise for the new products. First, both products received a 5-star review from consumers.

Even better were the comments customers gave:

o Awesome!

o Finally!!!

o Love this brand!

This program even had a direct and positive impact on sales: the new products were completely sold out after the airing of the show and had to be quickly replenished. They now have a permanent space on the shelves at Canadian Tire across the nation.

The sum of all results gave Canadian Tire validation that the chosen products were those consumers were looking for!