case studies

Canadian Tire

Position / Name / Positioning Statement

For the people of Canada, Canadian Tire is a national icon. It is also Canada's largest retailer by sales, with $9 billion in 2007 revenue. The company's executive leadership contacted Instinct after reading an excerpt from our book, Brand: It Ain't the Logo*.

Unlike several competitors including Walmart, Canadian Tire did not have its own “value Brand” – an in-house label, in a wide range of product categories, that offered similar quality to the competitive national Brand but at a lower price and with fewer “bells and whistles.”

It was our honor to coach the Canadian Tire team on following rigorous Brand discipline while considering several viable Brand positions, more than 600 names and 50 positioning statements. Rigorous Brand discipline in this context included continuous focus on the specific objectives the name and positioning statement must achieve – which include expressing, in an authentic and highly memorable fashion, the Brand's unique position.

The ultimate choice of name, LikeWise, does its job by conveying the value Brand's “like” but not identical qualities to the national Brand. The chosen positioning statement – Just what you need – reinforces the like features of the value Brand as well as suggesting lower prices through a double entendre.