Decathlon Canadian Christmas Campaign Declares ‘There’s No Sport Like The Holidays’

December saw sports retailer Decathlon seek to build further awareness and drive festive season sales through an integrated holiday campaign created and developed in partnership with agency Rethink.

The ad campaign approach focuses on the message that ‘the holidays are all about sport’ and thus sees Decathlon seek to further its mission of ‘democratising sport’ by reminding people that they’re more athletic than they think.

The campaign was broadcast nationally on streaming platforms, OLV and in theatres.

The campaign kicked off with a 30-second TV commercial which aired from 2 December and which came in the usual English/French formats. The hero spot sees a family at a festive party and highlights all the little hidden moments of sporting skills embedded in their everyday celebrations.

To highlight parallels between all the everyday activity at a party and sports-linked athletic movement, a large part of the creative execution relied on sound.

“It was a bit counterintuitive. We had to build a sound that was as close as possible to a sport, but which contrasted with what we saw in the visuals. All while keeping a certain synchronism to remain credible,” explained Jean-Nicolas Duval, artistic director at Rethink.

“The idea came from a very simple truth: there is so much action during the holidays. Between last-minute shopping, going back and forth in the kitchen and over-excited kids running around, we thought that the holidays should be reframed as a sport,” recalled Rethink Creative Director Maxime Sauté.

“Decathlon is a sports brand that places pleasure before performance. We want to help everyone – athletes and those who don’t see themselves as the active type – realize that sport is easily accessible to everyone,” commented Jaylone Lee, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Decathlon Canada.

The campaign was created for and briefed in by Décathlon Canada marketers Jaylone Lee, Manuela Comte and Marie-Lou Blais and conceived and developed by agency Rethink.

The team at the creative agency included Executive Creative Direction Nicolas Quintal, Creative Director Maxime Sauté, Concept Writers Isabelle Neault and Nicolas Dubois, Artistic Director Jean-Nicolas Duval, Account Services Alex Lefebvre, Aïcha Diallo and Rose Napoléon, Strategist Pascal Routhier, Suzy Truong and Clément Martin, with Agency Producer Valérie Lapointe, Director Benjamin Lussier, Producer Soma – Gabrielle Harvey, Director Of Photography Ménad Kesraoui, Editor Claude-Antoine Guibord, with post production by Outpost and sound design and mix by Circonflex’s Craig Murdock.

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Decathlon, which boasts more than 1,600 shops in around 50 countries, opened its first Canadian store in 2018 in Brossard (Quebec) and now operates 10 locations across the country.