Case Studies
Canadian Tire: What Do Males Want?
What would you do if you had two extra hours a week?
One of the findings of this interesting study was that what Canadian males wanted was …….more sleep! (When men were directly asked this question, sleep topped the list). Unfortunately, "more sleep" was not going to be the breakthrough Canadian Tire needed!
The Opportunity
In the last few years, since the recession began, many retailers were catering to females with their bigger shopping baskets and larger spending. Where did that leave the Canadian male? After all, the Canadian male had always been Canadian Tire's 'bread and butter'.
So Canadian Tire bravely asked: "What do males really want?" Canadian Tire's capable research team had a vision – to use innovative and unusual qualitative research followed by quantitative validation to find out. Two superb researchers and qualitative practitioners were retained (Dine & Associates and Heads Up). Hay Research International was hired to address the challenging task of confirming the findings among Canadian males quantitatively.
The Solution
Working as a team with Dine & Associates, we took care to create a friendly and non-intrusive research instrument. To our surprise, most of the males we talked to liked the survey and thought it one of the best surveys they had ever done. Sparing little, they divulged highly personal information about the important areas -- and people -- in their lives.
Our analysis relied almost exclusively on indirect methods. Based on this, the Canadian Tire team at last had the in-depth understanding of the Canadian male they had sought, insight they could now apply across the full spectrum of the marketing mix. One early application was in the production of new television creative.
Award Winner
This study won the 2010 Best in Class award from the M.R.I.A., Canada's overall award for the best research of the year.