Serving up an icon: My Canadian Tire life.
How iconic is Canadian Tire? Walk up to any Canadian and say The Tire, Arnold, and Canadian Tire Money*, and you will experience a profound and instant connection. And as an honorary Canadian (a Detroiter), it was a profound, well, honor to work on this OG big box retailer. Is this work from the turn of the century? Yes. Yes it is. Am I still proud of it? Sure. Every project was its own creative brief and retail segment. And it was all in service to The Tire.
* The Tire: conversational shorthand for the company name, obviously; Arnold, the title of a classic TV commercial so beloved it was commemorated with its own postage stamp; Canadian Tire Money, the store’s age-old—and outrageously valuated—loyalty program.
Marine Supply
Straight up: Canadian Tire sells way more than tires. In fact, they had the reach and respect to dominate in fairly niche areas of sporting goods. This series of print ads, which were adapted as posters in the retail environment, built on that image, evoking the bliss that comes from the open water, depending on which side of the surface you’re on.
Yardworks
Canadian Tire dominated the lawn and yard market as well, and boasted a complete line of tools under their Yardworks house brand. A constant creative rubric for CT was “demo-ability”, so we created this family of quirky demonstration-driven scenarios and peeks under the technological hood. Personal note: while I wrote every letter of copy, the quirky visual solutions were a holdover from my origins as an art director, with plenty of concepting juice from my partner at the time, the excellent Paul Applegate.
Simoniz
Working on the CT account meant working on dozens of accounts. Example: their partnership with Simoniz created the opportunity to create an barely-branded-CT television spot for their waterless carwash. The product demonstration is baked into a scenario in which a couple of hapless (yet resourceful) guys strand theirJeep in middle of Canadian nowhere, and use the showroom-shine of Simoniz to get themselves out of their scrape. (Apologies for the 1999-grade resolution. As I recall it, life was grainier then).
Canadian Tire Foundation
How do you create three disaster areas in a day and a half? Plenty of preproduction and exceptional location scouting. Here, we tell—and demonstrate—the story and mission of the Canadian Tire Foundation, and their commitment to addressing the needs of Canadians in crisis. Back when TV spots could stretch out, this aired frequently, taking full advantage of free public service. I especially like the mini-drama of the lost child. I was years away from having kids, but somehow I got it.
