To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Shoppers Drug Mart will launch in-store promotions, running over 16 days starting Sept. 8, which will be supported by the company’s largest media buy and contest ever, says Sandra Sanderson, SVP marketing.

The first phase of the campaign was a digital hub developed by Toronto-based Trapeze. Launched in August, it invited consumers to share their Shoppers memories. Part two of the anniversary celebrations will be promoted through a special Shaw partnership, with the campaign featured on ET Canada through shout-outs, sponsored segments, in-store shoots, and promo spots with ET’s hosts. And, since the entire campaign will be live during TIFF, Sanderson says they’ll have some red-carpet promo opportunities as well.

The creative, done in-house, centres around a red gift box logo, which will be heavily featured in-store, while the theme of the campaign focuses on the three Shoppers pillars: health, beauty and convenience.

“We landed on ‘fabulous’ – feeling fabulous is all about health, looking fabulous is all about beauty, and living fabulous is all about convenience,” Sanderson says. “We didn’t want this to just be a sale, we wanted to really go back to our brand, which is taking care of the whole you. We wanted a campaign that would reinforce our brand proposition.”

Within the aisles, Shoppers will decorate the store in gift boxes and anniversary signage, while employees don custom T-shirts. A 50th anniversary commemorative magazine was produced by St. Joseph Media and in-store promotions will run the gamut of the campaign, including chances to win one of 50 grand prizes, including trips, cars and shopping sprees when consumers spend more than $10.

Further, the retailer invited some key brands early on to participate in the 50th anniversary, with the goal of making sure each area of the store contains a branded anniversary promotion or pack. Aveeno and Pantene, for example, have both created bonus packs and promotions, while Lise Watier and cereal brands from Kellogg’s will have specialty packaging.

“We proactively communicated to them that we were launching this event,” she says, “Not every vendor partner was invited to participate, so we wanted to make sure we had the right brands in the right categories.”