CANAC

The dominant hardware players in Quebec – The Home Depot, Rona, Réno-Dépôt and Lowes – all focus on the same promise: price and/or choice. In these supersized stores, consumers may potentially find everything they’re looking for but it may take them a while. What makes Canac unique is its physically smaller size. Tools and renovation items are faster to find, but most importantly, renovation solutions are made easier thanks to an unmatched quality of service: in-store training sessions for consumers, more personnel per square foot than in any other chain, prepackaged renovation kits, helpful lists of “what not to forget,” and so on.

This was the springboard to “Hardware made easy.” The creative approach illustrates how simple renovation projects are with Canac. Eighteen outside display boards were “constructed” close to stores, featuring items cut out of the wood of the billboards and assembled above them. Cheeky print ads featuring notes like “Gone to the corner store” written into the floor were published in local newspapers. Inside posters were also displayed at key locations.

The agency also recommended that the client, at that time called Canac-Marquis Grenier, should update its visual identity. Most customers already called the stores “Canac,” so the name change represented a natural evolution.

A double-digit sales increase was recorded this summer, which represents Canac’s biggest sales increase in its history. Two of the outside display executions, “Fence” and “Window Shutters,” made the shortlist in the billboard category at the Cannes Lions. The print campaign was also awarded four Creas and an Applied Arts award.