Buckley's

Pioneering Marketing Strategies

Realizing the power of catchy copy and smart media buying, W.K. concentrated his efforts on print and radio advertising to sell his product. Considering this was an era when advertising was a relatively new and poorly understood phenomenon, W.K. was ahead of his time. As his son, Frank Buckley, pointed out "My father was first and foremost a born salesman." Frank Buckley believed that smart use of national radio in the early days of broadcasting was a key factor in building the business and establishing Buckley's as a household name.

The 1920s was a period of rapid growth at W.K. Buckley Limited with new products being introduced and distributed throughout Canada. Despite this growth, W.K.'s Drugstore in Toronto remained the headquarters for development of new products, including products outside the cough & cold category.

When the Great Depression hit, many of the secondary products were discontinued and W.K. Buckley Limited went back to what it did best: cough & cold preparations. During the Depression, the company introduced a smaller size of Buckley's Original Mixture, priced at a more manageable 40 cents to help consumers through those lean years. It was during this period that W.K. introduced his "medicine chest in a jar," Buckley's White Rub.

Facing New Challenges

By the 60s, it was clear that pharmacies were changing rapidly. The pharmaceutical industry saw the transition from small individually owned drugstores to drug supermarkets. Another change was the discovery of advertising by the other traditional pharmaceutical companies. The pioneering marketing and creative advertising strategies that had made Buckley's so successful and unique among the rest of the category were now being used by everyone. Buckley's no longer held that creative competitive edge. As a result, sales began sliding. 

Frank Buckley realized something had to be done. In the early 80s, the company decided on what he called, "the back to basics" strategy. Put simply, radio and print media had built the business, so Buckley's would use it to build it again.