Every year Canadian motorists wait until the first snowfall to change their summer tires to winter tires. Their on-the-road experience is so disastrous, they all rush in-store to get their tires changed. Business is lost, as Canadian Tire can’t meet all of the compressed surplus demand.

To stretch this lead-in period, the idea was to instill in motorists, that when ambient temperatures dip below 7°C and your breath becomes visible as it condensates in the cold air, it’s now time to make the switch to winter tires vs. waiting for the first snowfall to do so.

The breath visible during cold winter days was the inspiration, the visual cue that helped us change the purchase journey of millions of Canadian consumers. The unusual engagement tactic made the link: Canadian Tire regained the lead in market share of snow tires sales with growth of 11% YOY, and 38% of the tires were installed in the 3 weeks preceding last year’s schedule. Microsoft even gave the concept a nod, by awarding it a “Best Of” Award in recognition for the innovative use of technology and for doubling previous engagement metrics benchmarks set on its network.

We partnered with media sites like Skype, where the use of the microphone is native to the experience whether it be online or on the mobile phone. When consumers breathed on the ad, the microphone picked-up the action and frosted the screen, mimicking the frost on a cold window; a surprising new message was then revealed to consumers just like on the cold windows of their vehicles. A large scale support campaign was deployed online making use of content, context and social share opportunities, to increase relevance, temperature in each market was factored into the ad-deployment.

Every Canadian has experienced writing a message on a cold window with their fingers where their warm breath had condensated seconds before. This was the inspiration for the campaign idea to communicate to consumers: “when it’s cold enough to see your breath, it’s time to install winter tires”. As the automotive retail battlefield is fought almost exclusively online, we wanted to replicate this typical analogue Canadian experience and bring it to life as an engaging media first in the digital landscape.