With a tongue-in-cheek nod to Regis Philbin’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Zellers Canada has launched the largest single promotion in its history.

The 69-year-old retailer used the March 26 broadcast of the Academy Awards to launch ‘Of Course I Want to be a Millionaire’, a contest that offers Club Z members – mostly moms – the chance to win a million dollars.

The promotional campaign is part of Zellers’ ‘tactical shift’ toward more consumer promotions, says Julian O’Connell, the company’s director of sales promotion.

The contest is being supported with three national television spots, created by Toronto-based Ogilvy & Mather.

‘We wanted to get people excited and do it in a way that was a little different than your traditional promotional spot with things like floating dollar bills and huge dollar signs,’ says Patrick Gladney, account director at Ogilvy & Mather. ‘We wanted to do it in a way that was consistent with the rest of the Zellers’ work, which is trying to make an emotional connection with moms…to make moms feel as if we understand their lives.’

The campaign demonstrates, in a hilarious fashion, how a million dollars might make mom’s life easier. Thus, each of the 30-second spots features mom’s new executive assistant, ‘Brad’, whose sole purpose in life is to help mom out by super-managing the family, the neighbours and the dog. In one execution, Brad preps the family on what they should talk about at dinner – ‘happy-talk conversation’ – in anticipation of mom’s arrival.

By leveraging the popularity of the recent Millionaire craze in a fashion that’s consistent with Zellers’ image advertising, the promotion has served to make Canada’s largest loyalty program – with 10 million members – newsworthy again, O’Connell says. The contest, which is open only to Club Z members, is designed to recruit new members and encourage the participation of existing members – the more a member spends, the better the pool of awards for which they are eligible.

In addition to television, the ‘Of Course I Want to Be a Millionaire’ contest is also being promoted through point-of-purchase materials and more than 15 million scan cards to be distributed in-store and through newspapers across the country.

Credits:

Client: Zellers

Agency: Ogilvy & Mather

Account Director: Patrick Gladney

Creative Directors: Janet Kestin and Nancy Vonk

Producer: Laurie Maxwell

Copywriter: David Rosenberg

Art Director: Linda Carte

Planner: Anne Sutherland

Media: Television, point-of-purchase

Start Date: March 26

End Date: April 20

Strategy is on the ground in Cannes, bringing you the latest news, wins and conference highlights all week long. Catch all the coverage here.

Thursday’s batch of Silver and Bronze winners included the Creative Business Transformation, Creative Effectiveness, Creative Strategy, Luxury Lions, Brand Experience & Activation, Innovation and Creative Commerce Lions categories. Canadians were recognized with three Lions today: a Silver in Brand Experience & Activation, a Bronze in Creative Commerce and a Bronze in Creative Effectiveness. Rethink was awarded twice on Day 4, while Weber Shandwick rounded out the Canadian agency wins with one Lion. Below is a look at the work. Catch the Gold winners later this afternoon when they’re revealed at the gala in Cannes.

Creative Commerce (1 Silver)

1 SILVER: “U Up?” by Rethink for IKEA

IKEA’s “U Up?” campaign has legs, it turns out. The campaign is getting major love at Cannes. The IKEA work, created in collaboration with Rethink Toronto, added to its Cannes Lions tally with a Silver medal in Creative Commerce. That now makes five total Lions for the work, including two Golds on Wednesday night, for Direct and Socal & Creator. The campaign has been lauded by jurors for its dexterity, contextual timing and humour.

Creative Effectiveness (1 Bronze)

1 BRONZE: “Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch” by Rethink for Kraft Heinz 

Both Rethink and Kraft Heinz picked up another Lion, this one a Bronze in Creative Effectiveness for their collaboration on “Heinz Ketchup & Seemingly Ranch.” Not only did the work capture a culture moment spurred by Taylor Swift, but it also created a new product, “in under 24 hours,” to match. The latest two Lions makes 10 total wins for Rethink. Kraft Heinz and Rethink also picked up a rare Gold Lion for Media a day earlier.

Brand Experience & Activation (1 Bronze)

1 BRONZE: “Airbnb Icons” by Weber Shandwick for Airbnb

The Weber Shandwick work, “Airbnb Icons,” won Bronze on Thursday in Brand Experience & Activation after claiming a Bronze in Media Wednesday. Airbnb turned media brands into a destination, partnering with the likes of Marvel and Disney to offer travellers experiences like drifting off in the Up house or crashing at an X-Men mansion. The first 11 experiences rolled out mid-2024, and most of the experiences were free or under $100, with over 4,000 tickets sold by the end of the season.