KIND® Snacks Canada Tackles Toronto’s Boldest Food Thieves, Reimburses Victims of Squirrel Theft

While Toronto’s picnic season is winding down with the arrival of colder, shorter days, for many, it turns out, the arrival of fall may be a welcome reprieve. Sure, eating outdoors is a wonderful prospect, but as KIND® Snacks Canada’s latest campaign demonstrates, it’s also prime season to get one’s snacks stolen by pesky squirrels.

Created in partnership with McCann Canada, on August 17th, a pair of brand spokespeople took to Trinity Bellwoods Park to ask locals if they’d ever had a run in with these notorious thieves. Offering up an insurance form for those who said yes, participants were subsequently allowed to file a claim, receiving a KIND® snack bar as compensation from these “insurance agents”.

“Squirrels across the city have built a bit of a reputation – whether it’s parks, patios, or backyards, they’re not shy about helping themselves,” says Roohani Chauhan, marketing lead, KIND® Snacks Canada. “We created ‘Squirrel Insurance’ as a fun way to step in and ‘compensate’ Torontonians who’ve fallen victim to these bushy-tailed bandits. After all, KIND® bars aren’t just good for you; they’re irresistible, even to Canada’s ultimate nut connoisseurs.”

An endeavour which saw 3,960 samples distributed, for McCann, this is not the first time the agency has found success using squirrels to champion the brand’s primary ingredient. In many ways a spiritual successor to the viral ‘Packed with Nuts’ work that dropped earlier in the year, according to creative director Athina Lalljee, this activation reinforces the same truth, turning a functional message into a playful point of proof.

“Leaning into the nuttiness of ‘Squirrel Insurance’ was the perfect way to build on the ‘Packed with Nuts’ campaign,” she adds. “Everyone in Canada has a squirrel-snack theft story, either lived or witnessed. So, we asked, ‘who better to address this problem than KIND®?’.”

Despite the simplicity of the insight, however, execution was a somewhat complicated affair. Requiring a three-phase plan from the McCann strategy team, each part needed to come off without a hitch, in order to achieve the intended buzz.

“First up was the stunt itself,” explains senior strategist Sabrina Lau. “To turn curiosity into awareness, we leaned hard into the absurdity of ‘Squirrel Insurance’, bringing the relatable threat of snack theft to the top of people’s minds. To do this, we seeded the idea organically across social, posters, and local event listings, making sure the message popped up everywhere.”

Following this, the team geared up KIND® to step in as ‘the hero’ presenting a clever solution with the claims forms, and inviting people to share their stories on camera. Not only did this ‘coverage’ transform a simple product truth into a playful public service, but it enabled part three of the plan, turning real passerby pedestrians into policyholders and advocates, who continued to engage with the conversation on social.

This worked exactly as intended. Across the month of August, KIND®’s following grew 83.2%, not only turning a simple park activation into long-term engagement, but reinforcing the brand’s reputation for premium ingredients… and, as a bonus, generating some fun memories for everyone involved.

“Gathering stories didn’t take much work at all – everyone we spoke to had either experienced squirrel snack theft first-hand or knew someone who did,” recalls Athina. “They were excited to share their stories, and we even had a person showing us pictures of a squirrel who had chewed through their neighbour’s window mesh to sneak in for a snack! But, one of my favourite stories was about a squirrel who’d target strollers parked on the side of a playground while parents were busy with their kids. Ruthless!”

Meanwhile, for Sabrina, the fun anecdotes and success of the campaign have been major highlights since launch, but what really stands out about ‘Squirrel Insurance’ is the way it embodies the agency’s ethos – something Canadians can continue to expect from future collaborative endeavours.

“We’re all about ‘Truth Well Told’ at McCann, and we love how this idea tapped into a simple and relatable truth,” she concludes. Squirrels are snack thieves, and we used that to highlight what makes KIND® bars so great: real, whole nuts.”