SPORT MART PITCHES REAL STUFF IN NEW BRANDING CAMPAIGN
By Adnews Staff
Sporting goods retailer Sport Mart, based in Kamloops, BC, is targeting current and potential customers with an ongoing brand awareness campaign called "Real Stuff for Real People". Created in-house, the campaign uses tongue-in-cheek humour in an attempt to set the chain apart from its competitors. The campaign broke in March with a national Spring Break flyer. It continued with a mailing of Sport Mart's spring catalogue in early April. Ongoing radio and newspaper advertising continues to support the retailer's brand awareness efforts. Using the tagline "Real Stuff for Real People", the creative depicts a woman who gets up at 5 a.m. to go running but still misses her bus and a cyclist who encounters a 1,000 foot vertical drop because he took a wrong turn. The advertising is being accompanied with a new in-store layout and a new line of hockey equipment arriving in Prairie and Ontario stores this fall. Public relations for Sport Mart are handled by Optimum Public Relations of Vancouver. Sport Mart operates 37 stores in Canada and has plans to increase that number to 68 by 2003.