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March 16, 2006
I (heart) the Canadian Tire guy...
...no, not in the Brokeback Mountain kind of way (not that there's anything wrong with that) but this whole issue just lights me up because it's a perfect example of where just because the guy isn't funny, blessed with a great smile and the looks of the more handsome of the two surgeon guys off Nip & Tuck, he's gets turfed and Taxi gets hired to add some "personality" to the brand.
Guess what? I'll best most of the people that watch those ads are no more handsome, cool or less annoying than that guy!!!! Hey Canada, sorry about this but I've got news - THAT'S YOU!!!!! Sitting around on your weekends farting around with your house, trying to figure out how to solve relatively meaningless problems in your quest to make your house appreciate marginally faster because it's more fun than RRSPs and give you an excuse to get away from your wife and kids in the garage and drink some beer!!!!!
So, the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Let's bring in the hot agency that does work for Telus and Mini. Rather than having TV that demonstrates how a product can solve a practical problem, we're going to get more clever advertising. Because that's what we need, more clever advertising.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of Taxi. I like their stuff and they do a lot of good work but in this case, I think this one is going to go the wrong direction.
It's going to start with the objective. And what is it? Make Canadian Tire cooler? Add some "personality"? Sorry, it's named Canadian Tire and it's called just as often "Crappy Tire". How cool can it be? I'm going to have the same mediocre experience with the staff the next time as I did last time. Can anyone do anything about that? The cheap white tile floors will have the dull anti-lustre that comes from being walked on by balding, middle-aged, overweight Canadians all through our long winters.
More time should be spent on the in-store experience where the brand rubber hits the road rather than more advertising.
I already know for the most part what they sell because I've gone there every fourth Saturday since I was born. What these old commercials did is show some new innovative products that I wouldn't otherwise know about. That's a pretty good outcome when you think about it.
So, here's what will happen. No one will complain about the ads anymore. In fact, no one will really talk about them that much because they'll just be ads like a lot of other ads. They'll be well art-directed, cleverly written and make Canadian Tire seem a tiny bit cooler but they won't sell much if any more stuff because everything else about the experience of shopping at Canadian Tire will stay exactly the same.
So, I'll keep going to Home Depot for home stuff because I can find a sale associate that seems to want to help. I'll go to an auto parts shop for the stuff for my car because the parts are better and the guys at the parts shop know what they are talking about.
(And for the love of all of what is good, never buy a thermostat from Canadian Tire. You'll be changing it in 3 months and I don't care that much about the warranty considering the total pain in the butt it is to install them. At least the guy at the one near here has the decency to not sell them to people because they are so prone to fail!)
I'll buy my tires from a tire shop because the last set I took to Canadian Tire were overinflated by about 20 psi (I'm very fortunate they didn't blow out since they were at 50 psi). And generally Canadian Tire will continue to be as much a part of the Canadian fabric as Quebec separatism and life will go on.
Honesty time...the ads bugged me too sometimes, but they were effective and it's too bad that someone didn't steer this thing in the right direction and keep the good elements of it before it got to this point where everyone bitches about them. In concept they were really good, the execution needed some touching up.
So, here's to you Ted Simonett. You're one of us, whether we'd like to admit it or not. If someone needed an infomercial that needs a normal guy doing normal stuff, you're the man for the job.
Posted by Derek Leverington at March 16, 2006 8:09 PM
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