Canadian Tire has spent three years steering half of its sports sponsorship money into women’s professional sport. Now it wants the audience to catch up. The Canadian Tire We’ll Make a Fan Out of You commercial, posted on the retailer’s verified YouTube channel (@canadiantire) on October 14, 2026, is a 30-second manifesto from Publicis Canada that dares skeptics to keep doubting and then answers every objection with highlights, roaring crowds and a row of Canadian sporting royalty sitting in the stands. The harder question is whether a rallying cry this familiar can still convert anyone who was not already watching.
WHAT HAPPENS ON SCREEN
The film opens tight on a referee’s hand holding a puck stamped with the red Canadian Tire triangle, then a stick slashes across the ice and a shooter closes in on a sprawling goalie in front of Molson boards. Over this, the voiceover lays down the dare: “If you’re a skeptic, be a skeptic. Go ahead. Compare.” From there the edit rebuts each objection in pictures.
“Say the intensity isn’t there” lands on a puck battle along the boards. “Say sold-out arenas just won’t last” plays over packed bowls and a collage of crowd shots layered like torn posters. “That we’re good, but not world class” cuts to a soccer goal with Beijing 2008 boards behind the net. A black-and-white cutout of a Toronto Tempo player, a screaming player and a kid holding a “LET’S GO” sign carry the “this moment, this noise, this feeling” beat.
Then the archive opens up: Olympic hockey from Salt Lake 2002, a number 22 Wickenheiser jersey, a championship point on a Montreal tennis court, and a trophy lift under “Walter Cup Champions” signage as the super slams in: WE’LL MAKE A FAN OUT OF YOU. The voiceover closes with “Resist if you want to” and the title line, before the payoff shot: five athletes seated together in empty Canadian Tire branded seats, one in a red captain’s jersey, one resting a hand on a Wilson basketball, all staring down the lens. “Just watch us.” The end card is plain black with the triangle and two lines: “Canadian Tire proudly invests dollar for dollar in women’s and men’s sports” and “Great sport deserves equal support.”
CREDITS
Brand: Canadian Tire (Canadian Tire Corporation); president and CEO Greg Hicks and SVP marketing Eva Salem are quoted on the launch. Film: “We’ll Make a Fan Out of You,” 0:30, on Canadian Tire’s verified YouTube channel (@canadiantire), uploaded October 14, 2026. Agency: Publicis Canada. Featured athletes, per LBB: Hayley Wickenheiser, Kia Nurse, Vicky Mboko, Christine Sinclair and Marie-Philip Poulin. Context: the spot launches as CTC says it has met its 2023 pledge to direct at least 50 percent of its sports sponsorship investment to women’s professional sport; the platform also makes Canadian Tire presenting partner of the PWHL on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada. Sources: Canadian Tire Corporation press release (CNW, October 14, 2026), LBB news story and LBB work page (October 15, 2026), and the official YouTube upload. Not cited in those public sources: director, production company, editor, music or sound house, voiceover artist, and the source or licensing of the archival footage.
THE EXECUTION
Publicis Canada builds the spot as a call-and-response. The voiceover plays the skeptic’s lawyer, the edit plays the jury. Every cut has a job: disprove the line you just heard. The collage treatment, frames stacked, torn and scribbled over in red, gives the archive a scrapbook energy that matches the brand color.
The closing tableau is the real idea. After 20 seconds of noise, the film stops moving and puts the athletes in the seats, the place where the fans are supposed to be. It quietly flips the premise: Canada already cheers for these people at Olympics and World Cups, so why are their league games still a hard sell? Seating them under Canadian Tire signage sells the sponsorship story better than any super could.
WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T
What works: pace, conviction and a clean line of argument. The script never begs. It concedes nothing and lets the footage carry the claim that the intensity, the crowds and the world-class level are already there. The “dollar for dollar” end card gives the bravado a receipt; Canadian Tire is not just applauding women’s sport, it is pointing at a commitment it says it has met.
What doesn’t: the skeptic-versus-believer manifesto has become the default grammar of women’s sport advertising, and this spot does not break the template so much as polish it. The heavy collage styling and fast cutting also work against the very visibility problem the campaign names. Without on-screen names, a casual viewer registers crowds and celebration but not which athlete, team or league they just saw. It tells you to watch, but not what or where – exactly the gap the brand says most fans have.
VERDICT
“We’ll Make a Fan Out of You” is a confident, handsomely cut half-minute that turns a sponsorship milestone into a dare, and its final image of athletes sitting where fans should be is genuinely sharp. Real money behind it gives it more weight than most cause-flavored sports spots. But the manifesto format is well worn, and the montage is better at stirring pride than at pointing new fans to a game. Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
