Flying Tiger Copenhagen Just Landed at CF Eaton Centre, and Five More GTA Stores Are Coming

MarketellerStudio — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 03:38:10 +0000

Downtown Toronto has a new maze to get lost in. Flying Tiger Copenhagen Toronto opened its first Canadian store at CF Toronto Eaton Centre this June, and instead of testing the market with one cautious location, the Danish retailer is already lining up four more across the GTA.

Vaughan Mills, Scarborough Town Centre, Square One Shopping Centre and CF Markville are all getting a store within weeks of each other. Richard White, CEO of Flying Tiger North America, told Retail Insider the company plans to have five GTA locations running in short order. Canada, he said, is a very big country with a lot of opportunity.

A Store Built So You Cannot Walk Straight Through It

The layout is the whole strategy. There is no direct path to the checkout. Customers walking in for a notebook pass through kitchenware, candles, toys, craft supplies and seasonal décor before they ever reach a till. It is the same principle IKEA has used for decades, just shrunk down into a much smaller footprint.

White put it simply during a media preview ahead of the opening. He said the goal is to expose everyone to all fourteen merchandise categories as they make their way around the maze, and that if you are not smiling by the time you come out, you have missed something.

Credit: Flying Tiger Copenhagen, via Retail Insider

Why Five Stores at Once, Not One

Launching across five shopping centres in one wave, instead of opening a single flagship and waiting to see how Canadians respond, is a deliberate bet. It lets Fox Group, the retailer’s Canadian operating partner, test Flying Tiger against very different customer bases at once: downtown office workers and tourists at CF Eaton Centre, and large multicultural, family-oriented trade areas at the suburban malls.

Eithne Lavin, General Manager of Flying Tiger Copenhagen Canada, told Retail Insider the GTA was a natural place to begin precisely because of its scale, diversity and appetite for new retail concepts. Jens Aarup Mikkelsen, the company’s CEO, added that the brand sees strong alignment with Canadian shoppers who like design-led products at accessible prices.

More than 80 percent of the assortment is priced under $10, with about 27 percent under $5, and the company adds roughly 300 new products every month. That constant turnover is what is meant to pull people back in, even if they only came for one thing the first time.

Credit: Retail Insider / Craig Patterson

The Flying Tiger Copenhagen Toronto Brand Awareness Angle

Opening five stores across a region in weeks builds recognition faster than one location ever could. A shopper who spots Flying Tiger at Eaton Centre this month might run into the same brand at Square One or Vaughan Mills next month, and repeated exposure across different neighbourhoods reads as market presence rather than novelty.

For Toronto brands watching how international retailers introduce themselves here, the takeaway is not really about candles and stationery. It is that showing up in multiple places at once, quickly, can build more credibility than a single big splashy launch. Frequency builds familiarity, and familiarity is most of what brand awareness actually is.

We will be watching how the rest of the GTA rollout lands as part of our ongoing Brand Watch coverage.

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Toronto Assemble: Inside the M&M’S x Marvel Hero Studio Pop-Up on Queen West

MarketellerStudio — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 03:37:31 +0000

If you walked past Sankofa Square last month and caught a giant green M&M waving back at you, you were not imagining things. The M&M’S Marvel pop-up Toronto shoppers have been talking about all spring opened its doors at 938 Queen St. W from May 21 to 31, and honestly, it is one of the smarter brand plays we have seen in the city this year.

Called the Hero Studio, the free activation turned a stretch of Queen West into a Marvel training ground for the M&M’S Spokescandies. Instead of just sampling chocolate, visitors tested their reflexes, tried a super strength challenge, and filled out a Hero Pass for a few sweet surprises along the way. It sounds simple, but that is kind of the point.

What Was Actually Inside the Hero Studio

Mars set up the pop-up as a mission storyline. The M&M’S Spokescandies had supposedly visited Marvel Studios earlier in the year and auditioned for hero roles. Toronto got the next chapter. Fans who showed up between 12 and 8 p.m. on weekdays, or 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekends, could step through themed challenges, snap photos with an oversized She-Hulk-inspired Green M&M installation, and grab product samples on the way out.

None of this required a purchase. That is worth pausing on. A lot of brand activations quietly expect you to buy something to participate. This one just wanted your time and, ideally, a photo posted somewhere public.

Credit: Mars, Incorporated, via Strategy Magazine

Why the M&M’S Marvel Pop-Up Toronto Activation Exists

This was never just a Toronto idea. The Hero Studio is the Canadian piece of a much bigger global collaboration between Mars and The Walt Disney Company, running across more than 65 markets through 2026. Rankin Carroll, chief brand officer at Mars Snacking, put it plainly when the campaign launched: M&M’S and Marvel fans share a love of characters and storytelling, and this phase was built to combine both fandoms into one experience.

Patrick Zeng, who leads marketing for Mars Snacking Canada, framed the Toronto stop as a kind of hometown test. The Spokescandies had already had their turn at Marvel Studios. Now the city got to prove it belonged in the lineup too. It is a small line, but it does a lot of work turning a candy promotion into something that feels local and a little bit personal.

On the retail side, the tie-in extends well past the pop-up. Seven limited-edition M&M’S x Marvel packages, pairing colours like Yellow as Wolverine and Green as She-Hulk, are already on shelves at Loblaw, Walmart and Dollarama locations across the country, alongside a national contest running through the end of August.

Credit: CNW Group / Mars, Incorporated, via Retail Insider

The Marketing Lesson for Local Brands

What makes the Hero Studio worth studying is not the Marvel license, since most brands in Toronto obviously do not have that budget. It is the structure. Free entry, a clear reason to show up more than once, a built-in photo moment, and a light gamified path that rewards you for finishing it. That combination is exactly what pushes dwell time and organic social shares up, and neither of those require a Hollywood partner to replicate.

Toronto brands looking to try something similar do not need a giant licensed mascot. They need a reason for someone to linger, something worth photographing, and a small reward for finishing the experience. That is the whole playbook, and it works whether you are a global candy brand or a shop on a single block of Queen Street.

We will keep tracking activations like this one as part of our ongoing Brand Watch coverage, where we break down what is actually working for brands showing up in Toronto right now.

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