Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Welcome back to Sticky Sales Stories. Stephen Semple reached back into the archives, and literally we weren’t going to do this one, but now I have to do this one. Because I forgot about it, which sucks because it’s a brilliantly done ad, and it can work anywhere in North America.

But I’m going to play it first. And then Steve’s going to tell us why this one was so brilliant, and I’m just going to weigh in on it as we go. So watch this Canadian Tire ad from way back when.

 

Voiceover:
I’m sure a lot of folks can tell you the same story. You just don’t forget a thing like that. I can still tell you the page number in that Canadian Tire catalog. That bike went everywhere with me. But I knew Dad had more important things to think about. I slept, ate, lived, and breathed that bike, but I just couldn’t ask him for it.

Dad:
Hey boy, I got a couple new tires you can help me unload.

Voiceover:
Boy, what I would I give to have seen my face that day.

Matthew Burns:
Man, like the feels, the feels. As a dad specifically, I mean, moms will get this, if your parents ever surprised you with something that you didn’t know they knew, right?

Stephen Semple:
This is universal. And this ad is an old ad. This ran back when Canadian Tire was doing catalogs. It ran back then. And it’s funny, I can’t even remember when it ran, but I was listening to a podcast, and they referred to this commercial. So think about it. It’s probably been 40 years since I would’ve seen that commercial, and I remembered it. Just them talking about it, I remembered the ad. They didn’t say any part of the ad. They just talked about the ad.

And I was like, that’s how powerful the emotional grounding and recall that happens when you feel something that strong. And of course, it made you love Canadian Tire, right? It made you love the catalog because maybe you’d see something in the catalog that you like, and your dreams would come true. This ad is about your dreams coming true.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
And on the parents’ end, granting your children their dreams.

Matthew Burns:
Right. Well, and I like the vantage point of looking backwards. It’s like, man, because the last line, which I really, really loved, was, “I wish I could have seen the look on my face.”

Stephen Semple:
Yes. It was a personal expose. Yes.

Matthew Burns:
Oh, it was so well done.

Stephen Semple:
And I also loved the character of the father being this very stoic father. Hey boy, you can help me get a couple of tires out of the truck. There were so many things about it that I loved, and his hesitation to ask his dad, but his dad was so observant that he noticed so many things. There was just so much, not only emotion, character, in it, and the setting on this farm. And yeah, it was beautiful.

Matthew Burns:
Well, and that goes back to the question that I have. So we know that it worked. Here’s the thing: we know that it worked. It’s not whether or not this works. So screw all that, but we’re here to talk about why it worked. What are the techniques that they use really well in this storytelling? I mean, now, story, let’s just say storytelling is what they did. But in this storytelling here, we should be able to steal, copy, and use it in ads today.

Stephen Semple:
So here’s the funny thing: they did the four basics really well. It was an adult voice. So you knew right away he was reflecting back to when he was a child.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
Time, we knew it happened a long time ago. You knew that right away. You picked that up. No one had to say, “Hey, this was me. ” You picked that up right away in the storytelling. They did a great job of setting it somewhere. They set it on a farm. And here’s the funny thing: even though it was set on a farm, it appealed to all of us, whether he ever lived on a farm or not.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
They really brought out the child’s character, the child’s character of being hesitant to ask his dad. Why? His dad had other things on his mind, and he was this very stoic person. And making it that stoic person made this thing of noticing and giving the gift all that much more powerful.

Matthew Burns:
Absolutely.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, because then it’s like, “Oh, he deeply cares about his son even though he struggles to show it.” All of those things came out in this beautiful one-minute ad. It was just great storytelling, time, place, character, emotion, reflection, all of that stuff, and shared experience.

We all, as parents, have done that at some point for our kids, and as children, we’ve all at some point had our parents do that for us. The surprise and delight sort of gift.

Matthew Burns:
What they didn’t do, which we love, is mystery, but they still held onto the fact that we’re going through this story because it could have been about anything. It could have been about the bike. It could have been about anything else. Even though they mentioned it, I cut that out of the old Canadian Tire magazine or catalog. He says that in the ad, but they don’t force-feed it. They made it naturally appear.

Stephen Semple:
Yes. That’s a great observation. And I cut it out of the Canadian Tire catalog is a natural way to express that.

Matthew Burns:
This one resonates with us because we remember the ad, and we know about it. And Canadian Tire is Canadiana for us. So saying it wouldn’t necessarily mean it’s a Canadian Tire Ad. It could have just been an ad that they referenced Canadian Tire in. The fact that it happened to be a Canadian Tire Ad made it that much more special at the end.

Listen, the execution on it was brilliant. And if I’m going to teach any lessons, if I’m going to try and find a lesson in this one, it’s that we don’t see this really well done nowadays. There’s a lot more energy put into ads. This is a long… It’s a one-minute ad. It draws it up, especially for TV. TV doesn’t do long ads. They’re usually 30-second ads, but it’s a nice, long one, it’s slow, it’s methodical.

It brings you through the story. It builds up the emotion. And most ads nowadays, they’re going for punchlines and jokes and hitting it hard. And don’t wrong, there’s some greatness in those, but I think we lost the ability to do these really well.

Stephen Semple:
So I want you to play this ad again, and I want people to watch for this. The visuals add to the story. Too often, it’ll be things like, “I took it everywhere, including school.” He said, “I took it with me everywhere,” and then they just showed where he took it. Or when he talked about his dad having other things on his mind, they could say, “Well, he was a farmer, and they had other things on his mind.” No, we just showed him farming. Here we go again.

 

Voiceover:
I’m sure a lot of folks can tell you the same story. You just don’t forget a thing like that. I can still tell you the page number in that Canadian Tire catalog. That bike went everywhere with me. But I knew Dad had more important things to think about. I slept, ate, lived, and breathed that bike, but I just couldn’t ask him for it.

Dad:
Hey boy, I got a couple new tires you can help me unload.

Voiceover:
Boy, what I would I give to have seen my face that day.

Matthew Burns:
Man.

Stephen Semple:
And when that happens, we pay more attention to it. It becomes richer because the visual elements are adding to the story.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, exactly. This is one where it was … What they did was they concentrated on the storytelling and the why to buy from Canadian Tire, not what to buy from Canadian Tire.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah. Right?

Matthew Burns:
This is why you buy from us, because we’re in your homes, and we are already connected to you. We all have these shared experiences, and they slowly but surely drag it out through the ad where they draw… They didn’t drag it out, but they drew you through the ad with all of these beautiful cinematics. It’s funny, you know this is an old ad because it was square. It wasn’t widescreen.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, we really dated ourselves here.

Matthew Burns:
Right?

Stephen Semple:
I’m just glad it was in color.

Matthew Burns:
And we both remember the ad because it’s funny, you brought it up, and I remembered it. So okay, this was really good. And again, guys, we’re not saying copy this ad. What we’re saying is tap into shared experience. Tap into really good storytelling.

Don’t be overhanded with your brand offers and sales and blah, blah, blah, because you’re just going to lose people because they’re going to know it’s an ad. This one drew people all the way through before they said, “Oh my gosh, this is a Canadian Tire ad.” I loved it.

If you have any questions on this one, or you want to know more about what we do, or you just want to poke Stephen and say, “Stop doing the old ones, let’s see some new ones.” Just reach out in the comments, and we’ll connect with you. But thank you, Steve. This was a great one.

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