Dec 12, 2023
Alison Simpson, CEO of the CMA, and Susan O'Brien, Chief Brand and Customer Officer at Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC), discuss what it takes to understand your customers, staying true to your brand promises and innovative strategies to positively impact Canadians.
00:00:02:10 - 00:00:21:00
Announcer
Welcome to CMA Connect, Canada's marketing podcast, where industry experts discuss how marketers must manage the tectonic shifts that will change how brands and businesses are built for tomorrow, while also delivering on today's business needs. With your host, CMAs CEO Allison Simpson.
00:00:22:03 - 00:00:51:11
Alison Simpson
Today we're joined by Susan O’Brien, who's a chief brand and customer officer at Canadian Tire. Susan oversees a very broad mandate, and this responsible for the brand and marketing for the organization's full family of 13 banners includes everything from SportChek, party city, Helly Hansen, Marks and Canadian Tire Financial, to name a few. So she's very well suited to chat about what it takes to market a complex portfolio through a challenging economy, while also ensuring that she's staying true to the brand and the promises that are made.
00:00:52:10 - 00:01:14:17
Alison Simpson
Now, I've long believed that a real superpower of marketers is our deep understanding of customers and how they can help businesses innovate and differentiate from a marketing perspective, but also across all aspects of the business. I know from our earlier conversations that Susan agrees and is a really terrific example of bringing this super power to life. So thanks so much for joining us on CMA Connect today, Susan.
00:01:14:18 - 00:01:16:09
Alison Simpson
I'm looking forward to a great conversation.
00:01:17:10 - 00:01:20:16
Susan O’Brien
Alison, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here today.
00:01:20:22 - 00:01:33:02
Alison Simpson
Susan, we're going to kick things off knowing that you manage one of the largest brand portfolios in Canada. I would love to hear how you're building business and maintaining strong brands across your portfolio of banners, especially in the face of global competition.
00:01:33:13 - 00:02:07:14
Susan O’Brien
Such an important question, I would say, for all marketers, but in particular, right now for retail marketers, because of the seismic shift that has happened over the last several years in terms of the retail landscape with respect to the types of competition, we're up against being very significantly larger global in scale companies like Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, but also there's been such a shift over the last number of years in what I would call the new tools available to marketers to build strong and enduring brands.
00:02:07:14 - 00:02:43:16
Susan O’Brien
So I think I point that out because those who know me know I talk a lot about the shifting role of marketers, that normalization and this idea that because of this shift in the landscape and because of the opportunities provided to us by new tools like loyalty, first party data, deep customer analytics, even emerging technologies like AI, these things are all allowing the customer to be more at the center of the conversation, and not just in marketing, but across all of the decision making in the company.
00:02:43:18 - 00:03:06:02
Susan O’Brien
So I'd point all those things out because I think the question of how do you build brands today as a marketer has shifted so much, and I'm very pleased to say marketers now for the most part have been much bigger role at the executive table. Their ability to influence decision making by using these new tools that help us better understand the customer.
00:03:06:10 - 00:03:32:02
Susan O’Brien
It's real and it's happening and in particular is happening at Inspire. And so I would say given the portfolio of brands we have, you know, there's a million things we're doing to make sure those brands are strong and relevant. But if I could sort of boil it down to sort of what I think is fundamental, if you're a marketer today, will sort of ask yourself some of these questions around, does it start with your strategy?
00:03:32:09 - 00:03:58:03
Susan O’Brien
Does you know the notion of the importance of brand and the importance of customer really reside in your strategy at the top of the house, is your CEO endorsing it? Do you feel like you have partners across the business in doing so? Because it's the domain of marketers to have lots of understanding of the customer, but it has to work in concert with folks who are running the businesses and making decisions every day.
00:03:58:11 - 00:04:23:08
Susan O’Brien
So Canadian Tire, I am happy to report we have a strategy called Better Connected. It was launched two and a half, three years ago and it is, as the name implies, all about connections. And there's sort of three key areas of connections that might plays a pretty integral role in and shifting role of marketers. And how does that translate into building stronger brand?
00:04:23:08 - 00:04:51:09
Susan O’Brien
So the first area I think is really important, which is creating stronger emotional connections as a relatively large domestic player. But relative to our competition, small from a global perspective, we can't do our competition on their core differentiators. We have to focus on what differentiates us and for us. Canadian Tire as part of our better connected strategy. That's about emotional connection.
00:04:51:15 - 00:05:19:12
Susan O’Brien
That is about this relationship we have with mediums that is unique and that allows us to really build what I would call longer term like, like time loyalty. I have a team that spends a lot of time on that. These so everything from the traditional marketing aspects around truly end to end full funnel marketing campaigns for all our various areas, but also things like communications and how does that play a role in creating brand moments that connect with medium?
00:05:19:20 - 00:05:42:21
Susan O’Brien
That's one big area. The second area of connection in our better connected strategy is about customer connections, like literally down to using our loyalty program. It's my portfolio, the unbelievable first party data we get from that and turning that into real insights that allow us to do better marketing and to stay really connected in a way more relevant for our customers.
00:05:42:21 - 00:06:06:15
Susan O’Brien
Right message, right time, right place. And then the third area of connection is within the notion of creating an omnichannel, seamless omni channel experience. Physical meets digital in a way that lets a customer shop when how they want. And I have a team that oversees sort of those assets website and mobile app. And then how does that connect what happens in-store.
00:06:06:15 - 00:06:14:18
Susan O’Brien
So all of those things are what we're focused on as a company to stay super relevant and more connected to our customer.
00:06:14:18 - 00:06:41:05
Alison Simpson
That's such great perspective. Thanks, Susan. I want to go back to one of the things you touched on as far as the marketer toolkit has absolutely expanded and in that expansion, giving us some really powerful tools to support our colleagues at the C-suite and have increased credibility at the C-suite. You also very rightly called out that having CEOs operate around customer centricity is mission critical, and not every organization has a CEO that embraces that.
00:06:41:06 - 00:06:54:05
Alison Simpson
So for those that are listening, that might not have that benefit, is there any advice you can offer as far as leveraging the tools and helping our executive colleagues understand the importance of customer centricity?
00:06:54:21 - 00:07:21:16
Susan O’Brien
Yeah, we are blessed to have a CEO who genuinely believes that. I just said point out that because Canadian Tire has been for 100 years very local in the way we go to market, we have a dealer model, the dealers are in their communities. We are sought based on that community. We have local, you know, activations around charitable causes, etc. and community really show strong community.
00:07:22:01 - 00:07:39:15
Susan O’Brien
It is second nature to us and so we're starting from a place of strength. So that's like I just you need to bring that out. But with that said, when you consider as a marketer that your job is really to be that customer at the table, like that's how I think of my job and that can be that was daunting.
00:07:39:15 - 00:08:00:05
Susan O’Brien
I mean, I think back to early parts of my career, it's daunting because sometimes there's a temptation go, Yeah, yeah, we know the customer stuff. The truth is, you know, the economics would suggest we should do that or this the other thing. What's different now is we have that we have data that can truly enable that sort of credibility.
00:08:00:05 - 00:08:38:21
Susan O’Brien
So when you have a tool kit that includes significant first party data, for example, not just from our loyalty program, but we also have the credit card that is not a store card, credit card that people use outside. There's facts and data that you can bring to the table with sort of certainty and credibility when you have programs in place like Net Promoter Score, which you do across every aspect of our customer experience, there is a fact in there that, you know, at this point there is friction in the customers telling us and by the way, we can see that it's translating into news in sales or lack of conversion or whatever that might be.
00:08:38:21 - 00:09:06:21
Susan O’Brien
So these tools are just giving us much more credibility to be able to have those conversations. The only other thing I'll just sort of point out here is in it's not just that you've got customer data now there's new tools to enable the use of that customer data. So, you know, you think about things like the ability to know a customer better and to be able to offer them something that they need that is relevant at a certain point of time.
00:09:07:04 - 00:09:24:03
Susan O’Brien
That information's not just valuable to marketers, it's valuable to store operations. It's valuable to our merchants who plan assortments based on what customers want. So there's just so many more tools available to marketers that voice the tool.
00:09:24:23 - 00:09:41:03
Alison Simpson
That's great. Thanks, Susan. Now, my next question is a three parter and definitely a topic that I know our listeners are super interested in. So given the current economic climate, growing interest rates, financial struggles for many Canadians, how can businesses and marketers effectively connect with consumers?
00:09:41:13 - 00:10:10:18
Susan O’Brien
This is a massive conversation happening right now. As you rightly point out, it's difficult to even want to use the R word, but let's call it an economic downturn. It goes back to what I just said, to be honest with you, which is if you understand your customers and you understand where they are in their lives. And that's really what I mean by like, there's lots of tools, data, there's the elements for the end of day, the outcome is that you understand your customers where they are and you've got to meet them.
00:10:10:18 - 00:10:35:10
Susan O’Brien
There. And again, we're very fortunate at Canadian Tire because you even just look at what we sell at a single band or let's say cage or retail. We have the ability to, if we understand where customers are, is it? And in what we focus on and what we offer them. With 200 and some business categories, a key insight, we have just gone through that very sort of privileged data.
00:10:35:10 - 00:10:57:20
Susan O’Brien
We have our customer data from our credit card. We have lots of good insights and get them earlier so you can really start to shift. So for example, we saw really early that customers were starting to shift from what we call discretionary into essentials, meaning it makes sense, right? You know, you're feeling a little more constrained financially. You're going to start shifting.
00:10:58:08 - 00:11:18:17
Susan O’Brien
And that's not rocket science. But what is, is our ability to know which customers and which income levels and therefore, what does that mean for our assortment? What does that mean for what we market and what we sort of put out there is value messaging. How do you change your 1 to 1 offers program so that you can be sort of more relevant from a value perspective?
00:11:19:01 - 00:11:46:14
Susan O’Brien
What does that mean in terms of how you assort from a good, better best perspective in your stores? So the ability to really have tools to understand your customer and then to put them into action so that you really can pivot and show up differently when Canadians need you to be there differently. And so that's really been for us especially, we get asked a lot about, you know, how were you, how are you different than in the 2008 recession?
00:11:46:14 - 00:12:04:11
Susan O’Brien
And what we always say is we're just literally a far more resilient company because we have new capabilities that we didn't have back then. And I don't think a lot of marketers and companies have. But you got to want to understand that customer and where they are and then have the tools and ability to pivot the offering in the way you market to them.
00:12:04:20 - 00:12:14:15
Alison Simpson
You're absolutely right. And then even the definition of essentials, depending on where you are in life stage, from an economic background perspective, your definition of essential is fundamentally different.
00:12:14:15 - 00:12:15:18
Susan O’Brien
Absolutely.
00:12:15:23 - 00:12:19:02
Alison Simpson
So being able to drill down on that would be incredibly powerful.
00:12:19:02 - 00:12:19:15
Susan O’Brien
It's amazing.
00:12:19:23 - 00:12:23:09
Alison Simpson
Now, are you seeing any regional differences in how Canadians are responding?
00:12:23:15 - 00:12:53:05
Susan O’Brien
For sure we do. I think one of the biggest aspirations we have is in this fairly rigorous analytical modeling is just probably not a surprise. But again, those with the most debt are reducing the most in terms of spend. And so our ability to understand exactly where that is happening is helping us again, change the way we show up in those in those markets in terms of the offering and the way we market, etc..
00:12:53:05 - 00:13:12:21
Susan O’Brien
So yeah, we're seeing regional differences just driven by the fact that, you know, some provinces, some regions are carrying heavier debt loads. So how do you make sure that you're there for them when they need you in that different way, be it or offers or or value, etc.?
00:13:13:18 - 00:13:22:15
Alison Simpson
And have you seen any new opportunities or new consumer segments emerge as Canadians are grappling with economic pressures?
00:13:23:07 - 00:13:44:21
Susan O’Brien
The way we think about this is are fortunate because we do have such substantial data to be able to segment as required based on that need. So yeah, I mean, what I would say is we have a segmentation that really looks at value in terms of how our customers and what we're seeing is there's this shift. So it's not that there's a new segment, it's that people are shifting within that segment.
00:13:44:21 - 00:14:10:06
Susan O’Brien
So you might have been, you know, someone who would have responded less to our flier, you might have bought more on price, you might have spent less time taking us up on our 1 to 1 offers program and tribal rewards. And you might have bought more national brands, let's say. So there's you know, the ability to go well seeing customer just eating differently in this moment.
00:14:10:14 - 00:14:15:12
Susan O’Brien
And fortunately you know we have a suite of offerings that and and the more they are.
00:14:15:21 - 00:14:38:04
Alison Simpson
It's great and marketers and brand leaders can have a unique opportunity to certainly drive awareness and change for important social issues. So this is a great example. Certainly ESG and I know that this is the case for Canadian Tire, certainly with your commitment to make life in Canada better. So how do you determine which societal areas you want to make a positive impact on?
00:14:38:14 - 00:14:41:19
Alison Simpson
And what are some of the initiatives that you've developed to make life in Canada better?
00:14:42:07 - 00:15:20:08
Susan O’Brien
You know, I go back to our what I call better connected strategy, because that's the strategy. But that strategy was built off of a renewed and evolved brand purpose. But again, CEO support, this was not like the marketers saying we better have a brand purpose or this was our CEO wanting to codify the role we play in the lives of Canadians and the difference in that versus, hey, we should do something like this, you know, driven by the folks in New York, the marketers, whatever you want to call it, is substantial because it formed the foundation of our strategy.
00:15:20:18 - 00:15:47:14
Susan O’Brien
And the idea was every decision has to flow through that lens and not just the sort of call it corporate responsibility decisions. Every decision across the five pillars of that better strategy. Not only do we look at almost every decision we make through that lens, we also actually have a pillar that is focused on that, that notion of, I would say, ESG, but I would say broad broadly.
00:15:48:07 - 00:16:12:00
Susan O’Brien
It's this idea of how are we again, in the context of creating emotional connections for Canadians, making decisions that support Canadians, help build this country. We call it sometimes we call our role as a nation builder like we have. We have an accountability responsibility to this country to make sure that we're operating in a way that is right for Canadians.
00:16:12:11 - 00:16:38:18
Susan O’Brien
And so we've spent a lot of time going through very specific. What does that look like? What does it look like? We call it debate the entire diversity and inclusion and belonging. What does that what does that look like? And we've got substantial progress made in terms of people feeling like they belong through ERGs and sort of courageous conversations and real shifts in how we think about diversity.
00:16:39:07 - 00:17:03:03
Susan O’Brien
When you go to sort of the more aspect of it, the environmental aspect of it, we spent significant time. We even have a committee within our board at it's called the Branded Corporate Responsibility Committee, and they oversee our strategy. And so when you look at the EA, we launched our first ESG official ESG report about a year ago, again, driven out of this better strategy, just launched second one on September 6th.
00:17:03:08 - 00:17:37:06
Susan O’Brien
And there's some pretty big commitments in there. We made a scope, one and two commitment in that we made another commitment around unity with respect to have heard that we have committed 50% of our total sponsorship money to women's professional sports. And then we just recently became the founding sponsor of the Women's Professional Hockey League in Canada. We have doubled down on our crisis sort of interventions due across the country when there's a weather situation, flooding, etc. are released.
00:17:37:06 - 00:18:08:04
Susan O’Brien
From the humanitarian perspective, we have a partnership with Red Cross. So, I mean, I could go on and on and these are literally initiatives driven out of that promise to be there to make life better for Canadians and our beliefs that we have a very important long history. And it is not just to sell stuff to people. And so it just once you've said that people act that way, they come up with ways to sort of deliver on that promise in the most interesting ways.
00:18:08:04 - 00:18:13:17
Susan O’Brien
I'm normally delighted by what I hear happens across the organization in this regard.
00:18:13:17 - 00:18:38:10
Alison Simpson
And building on that point, you are truly making a difference as a brand of business in Canada and having the network of store owners that you do have across the country. I've seen some amazing examples of store owners sort of taking it on their own initiative to live up to that. And there was a snowstorm where literally the entire town was closed down, that the Canadians tire store and our went in and opened it up to support the community.
00:18:38:17 - 00:18:45:11
Alison Simpson
So what are some of the ways that you've been able to get that level of commitment from your store owners as well?
00:18:45:18 - 00:19:23:01
Susan O’Brien
It's probably clever, but I love this company. I believe in what we're trying to do and I think the dealers are we call them our associate dealers, dealers, those store owners. They are the heart of this company. And so when we talk about I said we evolved and codified our purpose, we are here to make life better. When you're doing that for a corporation that has a number of banners and a bank and a whole bunch, things like that, you naturally default to your sort of color, your organizing logic as a company.
00:19:23:01 - 00:19:46:12
Susan O’Brien
And that organizing logic is around the entire retail and community. Retail is built through our dealers and how they show up in their community. So in some ways, I mean, we didn't have to encourage anything. If anything, we built off the legacy that they have in this company being there. So it's the craziest thing. We we have our corporate things and initiatives we have to do and want to do and not to do.
00:19:46:19 - 00:20:13:04
Susan O’Brien
And then we have this like unbelievable sort of on the ground, always on community ambassadors in our dealers, in the stores. You know, I just came back from our dealer convention, which happened, and all our dealers come together, talk strategy and a variety of other things. And we have an award. And every year, I swear to God, it breaks me up for dealers who do things in their communities and kind of blows your mind.
00:20:13:04 - 00:20:34:05
Susan O’Brien
I'm not kidding. It's our secret sauce. It is our ability to be here for another 100 years runs directly through those two or so. You don't have to encourage much. The only thing I would say is we're just really trying to even understand more of what they do, frankly, so that we can make sure that all the best practices and things that we're doing, we understand.
00:20:34:05 - 00:20:39:07
Susan O’Brien
So that's a little bit of work we took on as part of the thing. But we're we're very fortunate.
00:20:39:18 - 00:20:50:13
Alison Simpson
And screwed now as we look ahead to 2024 and unfortunately, the potential for another challenging economic year, how can brands ensure that they're staying true to the promises that they've made?
00:20:50:23 - 00:21:14:03
Susan O’Brien
Yeah, this is a big one. I mean, there's lots out there literature wise. Yes. Painting in terms of importance to companies and is going to be put on hold at I'll just put it out there, I believe amp put on hold. But it does have to be balanced with everything else that has to get done because we can't actually be great at ESG if we're not being successful at business.
00:21:14:16 - 00:21:33:13
Susan O’Brien
And it's like there's not trade offs there. I fundamentally need that now, especially for a company that believes we're going to differentiate based on emotional connection that, you know, the two go hand in hand. You're not trading off some ESG initiative for building your business, but you do need to balance the investments you make. So that's what it's about.
00:21:33:13 - 00:21:53:05
Susan O’Brien
I mean, that is those are the conversations that happen and you make commitments and those commitments need to be felt. So it really is you know, it's that conversation, that belief in your strategy and coming together to say, how do we accomplish? Or then we probably should based on what's happening in the market right now. But we are committed.
00:21:53:05 - 00:22:15:01
Susan O’Brien
Certainly. I think one thing I just threw out there is our Jumpstart charity. I didn't mention it earlier and the long list of things we've been doing, probably because we've been doing it for 15 years now, just celebrating 15 years a long time. And that program we there's no scaling back on that really ever. We have just continuously invested in it.
00:22:15:07 - 00:22:38:21
Susan O’Brien
We've expanded the mandate of that program to not just be about helping kids, you know, who can't get into sports from an economic perspective to how do we help young women become leaders through sport. So we there's no pullback on our part, but there is a balancing and a lot of creativity being used to get to that end game, just given where companies are right now.
00:22:38:21 - 00:22:40:13
Susan O’Brien
I think everyone is headed that way.
00:22:41:06 - 00:22:59:18
Alison Simpson
Thank you on behalf of the amazing company you're working for. I certainly growing up was encouraged to be involved in sports when it wasn't always the norm for females. And I think about the life learning I got from that, the way it helped set me up for professional success. The just the the grit that you develop and being involved in that.
00:22:59:18 - 00:23:12:03
Alison Simpson
So that legacy you have as enabling Canadians who don't have the financial means to enjoy and benefit from that learning and those life skills is absolutely commendable. So thank.
00:23:12:03 - 00:23:13:07
Susan O’Brien
You. Thank you, Alison.
00:23:13:16 - 00:23:25:11
Alison Simpson
Now, absolutely. There are going to be some valuable insights shared today, Susan, and you certainly didn't disappoint. So I'd love to close by asking you to share one piece of advice for the marketers who are listening to us today.
00:23:26:06 - 00:23:59:16
Susan O’Brien
I think it comes back to I put myself in my younger shoes and I think about the times where I didn't feel that I had a voice at the table. Maybe different for some brands, but if you feel like that, challenge yourself and push yourself at the worst thing that anyone could say is no. But if you really believe it, you need to bring that voice of the customer to the table, even when you're uncomfortable, it matters.
00:23:59:16 - 00:24:17:05
Susan O’Brien
It can make a difference. And I feel very fortunate to work for a company that does value that. But I also don't always win. There are there are times where, you know, there's other considerations and again, it comes back to, that's okay, you got to move that penny forward every day, day in day out.
00:24:18:05 - 00:24:34:04
Alison Simpson
And that's such great advice. And as a younger marketer, I also suffered from the will and willingness to be brave enough to speak up. The good news is it does get easier, but you really do have to take that risk and ultimately what you learn as No, it doesn't hurt that much.
00:24:34:17 - 00:24:47:01
Susan O’Brien
It has not hurt that much. Yeah, 100%. You do. And that's that whole sort of notion of test and learn culture. It's okay. It's okay if everything doesn't work. What did you learn from it? Yeah, some.
00:24:47:01 - 00:24:59:16
Alison Simpson
Of my most valuable lessons came the hard way, for sure. So, Susan, I want to thank you again. I know you're incredibly busy and I really appreciate you taking time to join us on CMA Connect today. And I wish you a great rest of your day.
00:24:59:22 - 00:25:08:21
Susan O’Brien
I'd just like to say to you, thank you for all the tremendous work you're doing at the CMA from all the marketers who really benefit from your work. I really appreciate it.
00:25:08:21 - 00:25:19:15
Alison Simpson
So great and blessed to have a great team and a lot of very actively involved members who are volunteering. So I will take the thank you on their behalf as well.
00:25:22:10 - 00:25:36:18
Announcer
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