Canadian Tire is highlighting the role its products play in everyday lives, this time from the tester’s POV.

The retailer’s latest creative is the second phase of its “Tested for Life in Canada” quality assurance program, and casually follows a “Game Day Hero” who brings home-cooked snacks during important games.

The campaign continues a through-line from Canadian Tire’s 2022 work highlighting key “no-fail” moments for products, while providing a fresh take from the tester’s point-of-view. Each moment ties back to Canadian Tire’s brand ethos of making life in Canada better,the retailer says.

Only products that have an average rating of four or more stars earn Canadian Tire’s Tested badge, and it’s the brand’s way of highlighting the best products of a given season as chosen by Canadian testers. Since the program was introduced a decade ago, Canadian Tire vice president of strategic marketing Irene Daley says it’s been a way to reiterate the brand’s “unwavering commitment to quality products.”

The three-phase campaign focuses on keeping Tested top-of-mind for Canadians throughout the year. Its Phase I, which featured a proud mom who bakes her daughter’s wedding cake and wrapped mid-April, garnered 88 million paid digital media impressions to date. Based on comparable campaigns with retail, the ad recall lift on YouTube is 24.76% higher than relative lift.

As Daley tells strategy, the spot delivered the “perfect blend of product and tester, emotion, and function all in a short, but memorable storyline” that resonated with viewers.

The POV shooting style also had an inherently social feel, which allowed it to easily translate to other channels and platforms.

From a base of less than 100 testers in its first year, the Tested program grew to include tens of thousands from coast to coast. Early marketing efforts were focused on building awareness by highlighting over-the-top tests. As the number of products included in the program increased, ads evolved to highlight everyday Canadian testers, but drawing a link to the quality fell short of goals, Daley notes.

As Daley explains, Tested is unique in the sense that Canadian Tire wants to focus on communicating the benefits of the program, and not specifically the products being leveraged in the ads.

Campaign tactics include 15-second paid national TV spots, OLV (YouTube), social (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok), social media influencers and content creators, and brand-owned channels.

This campaign was developed in collaboration with Publicis Canada (creative), Touché Media (paid), #PAID (influencers), and Canadian Tire Digital (paid social).

“We recognized there is still a need for a more concentrated push from the onset to help establish a baseline reach for the new creative,” Daley says.

“While TV could have been seen as a primary channel in the past, the current strategy reflects a more holistic, balanced approach to the mix. It’s also the first time we have taken an always-on approach to our broadcast buy.”