How RONA Struck Gold in 2025 Through the Power of Music

Home improvement retailer RONA has long understood the value of sonic branding. From jingles to tastefully-scored TV spots, a genuine effort has always been made to ensure the ads it delivers to Canadians are pleasing to both the eyes and ears – something largely driven by the pairing of creative agency Sid Lee, and audio house Circonflex.

With that said, looking at RONA’s body of work across 2025, it's clear things were taken to a whole new level this year. Aside from a full sonic rebranding, which saw the company receive an updated jingle and spring anthem played entirely on its own tools, the big difference maker would occur when Sid Lee recognised an opportunity for clever wordplay, particularly within the French Canadian market.

Specifically, The Knack’s 1979 classic ‘My Sharona’ just so happened to sound an awful lot like the phrase ‘Mike chez RONA’ (Mike at RONA). It was a creative opportunity Circonflex’s CEO and composer, Paul-Étienne Côté, describes as being “almost too good to be true”. So, all parties jumped in with both feet, seeking to launch a TV spot set to the song… with the misheard lyrics baked in.

“[The wordplay] is PURE GOLD for one’s ears,” he continues. “To maximise resonance [in the spot], we wanted to mirror the original version as closely as possible, matching instrumentation, tone, and energy, so that the moment felt instantly familiar while still humorous and playful. The closer we stayed to the original, the stronger the emotional connection with the audience.”

Of course, this was always going to be easier said than done. Despite re-recording projects offering the advantage of an already-written song, capturing a sound authentic to the late ‘70s meant Circonflex faced the technical challenge of balancing fidelity to the original with new creative layers, and delivering a flawless performance in the process.

For this reason, according to Paul-Étienne, the first part of this undertaking was an exercise in sonic detective work. Analysing every layer of the original – from the drums to the guitars, bass and vocals – the team sought an understanding of the song’s textures, effects and rhythmic nuances, before attempting to recreate that sound in studio, down to the mic placements and mixing techniques.

Equally important would be casting. Keenly aware that the vocal delivery had to feel “authentic, playful, confident and familiar”, the team invested a lot of time into selecting someone capable of "inhabiting the song’s spirit”, rather than just mimicking it.

“We auditioned multiple voices, focusing not just on tone, but on energy, phrasing, and attitude,” Paul-Étienne says. “Finding the right performer ensured that the humour landed and the track resonated naturally with audiences. And, spoiler, the singer would later be asked to go and sing this song on famous radio stations in Quebec! It went viral in all possible ways!”

Indeed, once everything actually came to market, the response was phenomenal. Escaping the usual confines of adland and making its way straight into French-Canadian culture, the initial rollout would spawn everything from TikTok videos of construction workers singing the track on job sites, to an Instagram fan page dedicated to ‘Mike chez RONA’. A quantity of buzz neither Sid Lee nor Circonflex had originally anticipated, for Paul-Étienne, it was an absolutely glorious time.

“I have a lot of friends in construction, and their reaction completely shifted,” he recalls. “They suddenly treated me like I had done something that belonged to their world, not mine. I’m not exaggerating – every time I met one of them, someone would point at me and say, ‘Hey, this is Paul, he worked on the music for ‘Mike chez RONA’!’. And the answer was always, ‘No way, that’s actually cool!’.”

However, where some might have seen this as an opportunity to bask in glory, Sid Lee and Circonflex certainly weren’t satisfied with a one-and-done. To take this offering to the next level, the two subsequently delivered an elevated and cinematic rendition of their smash-hit in partnership with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at La Maison symphonique de Montréal – an experience Paul-Étienne describes as “intense, inspiring, and incredibly precise”.

Here, led by composer Olivier Girard, the audio house kicked things off by building a full orchestral arrangement of ‘Mike chez RONA’, translating every element of the cover track into a 30-second symphonic edition. Guitar lines became strings, big hits moved to brass, the rhythmic drive went to percussion and timbales, the organ added theatrical colour, and a four-voice choir brought human warmth. But, in the middle of the recording, a sudden ask by director Didier Charrette threw an unexpected curveball into the mix.

“He requested a 60-second version, even though we had only written 30,” Paul-Étienne laughs. “Thirty seconds! It was a moment of madness. Suddenly, I was sprinting to the conductor and the orchestra, drawing repeat signs and da capo markings directly on everyone’s sheet music so they could perform a longer version on the spot. It felt like being thrown into a John Williams-style emergency rewrite, while Steven Spielberg waits behind the glass. Total chaos, total pressure, and honestly, completely exhilarating.”

Despite this creative hiccup, the experience was undoubtedly positive. Not only did the song sound incredible when played by the live orchestra, but it proved that Circonflex had effectively managed to navigate the challenge of translating rock-pop sensibilities into orchestral language, without losing humour in the process.

“The collaboration was a dream,” Paul-Étienne continues. “Not only is the OSM one of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, rooted in Quebec culture, but it was an honour to translate a playful pop-culture hit into an orchestral arrangement. Plus, orchestration is something that always hits close to home at Circonflex. I was a violin player for numerous years and loved playing in orchestras!”

This effort too would go on to receive warm public response. Further cementing ‘Mike chez RONA’ as a pivotal tool – auditory and beyond – in the retailer’s future marketing endeavours, it all served to prove that even small cultural insights can spark massive engagement with the right creative treatment.

But, for Paul-Étienne, the real takeaways here are that music in advertising works best when paired with strategy, technical precision and emotional storytelling are allowed to intersect, and that casting and performance are just as important as arrangement and production.

“We love crafting re-records,” he concludes. “When done right, they become narrative tools – bridges between nostalgia and novelty, between global pop culture and local meaning. At their best, re-records don’t just support the idea; they are the idea. And, to be part of one that went viral inside such a specific group? Strange, unexpected, and honestly, really fun.”