Marvin Meyer  /  Unsplash.com

 

Staples Canada recently launched its latest campaign, “Let’s Find Out,” designed to tap into the curiosity that inspires the brand’s customer base of lifelong learners, creatives, achievers, students and entrepreneurs, and underscores its ability to help its customers as they look to grow professionally and personally. The campaign is another step in the Richmond Hills, Canada, company’s plan to rebrand to The Working and Learning Company, which will continue to unfold over the next few years.

“Let’s Find Out” was developed by Rachel Abrams, the new group creative director for Jackman Reinvents, a Toronto, Ontario, business management consultant that’s worked with Staples Canada since 2019 and emphasizes the notion that Staples Canada will strive to provide solutions to its customers’ needs, from questions about the best laptop to use for remote learning to ideas on how to grow a business. “They’ve done a lot of work to go from being the office supplies warehouse to the Working and Learning Company,” Abrams told Canadian business magazine Strategy about Staples. “Staples is not just the humdrum office supply chain people might think of. It was our task with this campaign to let people know about that.” Through this new campaign, Staples Canada is not only reinventing itself to coincide with its rebrand, but it’s also working to adjust the perception of being simply a one-stop quick shop for easy office solutions but as a partner in business offering printing, graphic design, co-working spaces and professional development workshops. While Staples Canada was seen as an office supply store, the goal is for The Working and Learning Company to be seen as a partner that’s equipped to aid in its customers’ growth.

The campaign is being marketed with multiplatform, bilingual, 15- to 30-second segments featuring Canadian host and comedian Howie Mandel—who leads the English-speaking segment—and Canadian TV personality Pierre Yves (P.Y.) Lord, who leads the French-speaking segment. In the segments, which are being shown in TV and digital ads across Canada, and in flyers, email, in-store signage and ecommerce, Mandel dresses as customers’ doppelgängers and follows along as they seek answers to their questions. In one scene, the owner of a café asks himself, “Will a big banner attract more customers?” to which he stops by Staples Canada for a “Let’s Find Out” solution.

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Danielle Renda is associate editor of PPB.