When Canadian Tire launched designer/TV personality Debbie Travis's line of paints in 2005, the idea was to attract more women to a store best known for car parts. Four years later, Travis's collection has grown to more than 1,200 home decor items, something the company celebrated with a promotional event called "What Women Want" at Yonge-Dundas Square yesterday afternoon.
More than 15 brands sold at Canadian Tire—among them Royale bathroom tissue, Cadbury chocolate, and Colgate toothpaste—participated in the public party, displaying products and giving samples to the 3,500 freebie-seeking attendees (a fairly close split of women and men). Guests who received stamps from five vendors on the What Women Want passport the received at the event's entrance could line up for a 30-second stint in Canadian Tire's "Money Machines," two wind-producing booths that spewed the store's trademark coloured money, which could be spent at Canadian Tire stores.
In the middle of the square, a large black tent showed off Travis's newer additions to the Canadian Tire collection, including ottomans, chairs, and dinnerware.
"More and more women are shopping at Canadian Tire, and there are a lot of products that are really relevant to women, so when we were renewing our partnership with Debbie, we were thinking about all the different things we have that fit with that demographic," said Joanne Elson, the company's manager of media and public relations, who worked with David Graham of Boom! Marketing to plan the event.
To ensure a strong attendance, Canadian Tire put invites in its Toronto-area flyers and partnered with local radio station Chum FM to broadcast live from the event, which ran from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Elson said the company also sent out event details via Facebook and Twitter and alerted building owners in the area to share details with tenants who could walk to Yonge-Dundas Square on their lunch breaks and munch on samples like brie and bacon bites from Ted Reader’s booth and quesadillas from a George Foreman grill station.
At 12:30, Travis—who recently signed another two-year contract with Canadian Tire—spoke to crowds about her influences for fall (African and Asian prints), adding a plug for her new book, Not Guilty: My Guide to Working Hard, Raising Kids and Laughing Through the Chaos, which came out earlier this week.
