Reliability is an attribute Fountain Tire is hoping to communicate in its latest campaign. Building off of the brand’s existing advertising platform, which uses a sidecar as a visual representation of the brand’s promise to support drivers, a new commercial aims to showcase the brand’s trust and reliability. 

The spot features a teenager who receives car keys for his birthday, only to find that his parents have gifted him their old family minivan, with a Fountain Tire sidecar attached. The Fountain Tire sidecar rider insists the brand will help keep that van on the road for years to come, to the teen’s disappointment.

Fountain Tire wanted to ensure the campaign included the brand’s signature sidecar in a “meaningful and impactful” way, says the company’s director of brand and consumer experience Stephanie Proseilo.

“[After] a lot of the research that we’ve been doing in terms of our brand health, we wanted it to come across as emotional storytelling… [which] people could connect to, relate to in a way that they felt ‘I’ve been there, I’ve done that, I’ve felt that before,'” Proseilo tells strategy. She adds that the campaign also needed to exemplify how customers can trust the relationship they have with Fountain Tire.

The sidecar is a advertising device that first appeared in a 2022 ad campaign for the brand, and which showed how it’s “on the road” with its customers. Proseilo says Fountain Tire wanted to create something similar to the TD green chair, which people connect to in the brand’s advertising.

Research shows that Fountain Tire is well known for its tire service, but not for the rest of its offerings. So Proseilo says a strategic objective for the brand is to communicate how it offers more. “We want to communicate that we can take care of your whole car, not just the tires. So we needed to make sure that message was in there a little bit more than we’ve had it before. This time, because it’s a brand campaign, we are trying to put it together in a subtle but obvious way that we can take care of your full car.”

The integrated campaign is scheduled to run until this summer. It includes TV, radio, digital and social media across key markets, along with extensions in Meta and TikTok. FCB Canada oversaw the strategy and creative work behind the new campaign, while Guru Communications handled the media buy.