CONNECTING TO NEED = RELEVANCE

“Ready For Winter” was the first ever transit shelter informed by real time data, and the driving force behind the development of the technology. Through this technology, Mark’s was able to connect a live Weather Network feed to determine the sale price for consumers. As the temperature dropped, so did Mark’s discounts on winter apparel, allowing Canadians to reap the benefits of a colder winter. And since these shelters were located in proximity to flagship stores in the GTA, the message ignited immediacy with a simple and easy call-to-action.

Though this innovative technology was rather simple in nature, its importance was central to the strategy. The innovation directly answered the retail-based business problem by not only connecting to a real-time consumer need driven by increasingly colder weather, but by also generating authentic consumer demand with the dropping price on apparel. Helping the idea’s strength lie also in it’s ability to tap into the innate human behavior of tracking the weather, which in Canada plays an integral role in daily life and being prepared.

Beyond helping Mark’s successfully drive business through a simple clearance offering, “Ready for Winter” also helped push the OOH media landscape closer towards the digital era. With every other media platform evolving with the impact of digital, it was time for OOH to do the same.

USING MEDIA TO MAKE A SALES MESSAGE MEANINGFUL

The original intent behind the “Ready for Winter” transit shelter was simply to drive short-term, end-of-year clearance goals. In the end, however, its overall impact for Mark’s is much more permeating.

Though the campaign ran for only three weeks, and during the aftermath of Christmas’ wake, the flagship stores in Toronto experienced a 21% increase in comp sales YoY, 13% above non-participating Ontario stores. The activation also garnered an impressive 18.6 million impressions from news coverage across 11 outlets.

But beyond the successful business metrics, the “Ready for Winter” transit shelter’s greatest impact has been it’s ability to transform the retail and promotional opportunities for Mark’s moving forward. The impressive response to these transit shelters was the first step needed in reorienting the approach to sales initiatives. The takeaway being, while promotional activity needs to answer “dry” business problems, there is still plenty of opportunity to continue to implement strategy and extend the brand purpose. This simple but powerful lesson has allowed Mark’s the freedom to feel confident investing dollars in more innovative ways to drive home a clearance message.