15 minutes plus: Pharmasave Ontario is in promotion mode, but its chief usually isn’t

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Just about every father thinks he’s a master of the grill. Few are ever challenged to prove it. Even fewer become internationally known as the BBQ Dad on both web and traditional media. But Doug Sherman, Pharmasave Ontario’s CEO, has become just that with very little effort and with almost no experience in the art of self-promotion. “I’m kind of like [New England Patriots coach] Bill Belichick when it comes to social media: I call it SnapFace, I’m not on Facebook, I don’t follow people,” says the 19-year leader of the drug store co-op, which is in the midst of a massive expansion. “But we had a lot of fun with it within my family and, obviously, within the Pharmasave family.”

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It was Sherman’s daughter Amy who inadvertently got the whole thing started when she posted a picture of her dad standing in front of the family barbecue, filled with grilling chicken and vegetables, to the website of her Toronto-based healthy meal delivery service called The Little Honey Bee. The picture was then copied into a Craigslist ad by some 20-somethings in Spokane, Wash., looking for a “generic father figure” to attend a Father’s Day celebration. Among the expected duties: “grilling hamburgers and hotdogs (whilst drinking beer),” and referring to “all attendees as ‘Big Guy,’ ‘Chief’, ‘Sport,’ ‘Champ,’ etc. (whilst drinking beer).”

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It didn’t take long for the ad to go viral and Sherman found out just how much when the assistant greenskeeper at his golf course told him he was blowing up on the internet. The Today Show, CBC and City-TV’s Breakfast Television picked up the story; Sherman and Amy even got to barbecue on City-TV studio building’s rooftop with host Dina Pugliese. They also got to plug Pharmasave and Honeybee a few times to boot. “I don’t need the notoriety myself. I’ve got a lot going on. But I thought, How can I help my older daughter, Amy?” he says. “My owners have gotten a kick out of it, too, actually.”

I don't need the notoriety myself. I've got a lot going on

Doug Sherman, CEO, Pharmasave Ontario

So much so that Sherman was the BBQ Dad at a community barbecue in Bowmanville, Ont. this summer at the local Pharmasave owner’s request. At another community event, a life-sized cutout of him was on display. And he reprised his role on the grill at the annual Pharmasave owners’ retreat on Muskoka’s Lake Rosseau in late September.

Oddly, Sherman’s role as head of Pharmasave Ontario is more behind the scenes, one that doesn’t require him to be on social media or in promotion mode. He understands the power of the web — after all, both of his daughters operate online concerns (his youngest lives in London and runs the Hungry Londoner Instagram page, which posts restaurant reviews and photos), but says the individual Pharmasave owners are the ones who should have a community presence, both online and on the street. “My job is to lead the team of employees who provide the support to our small business owners,” he says. “The focus is not us, it’s on the 300-plus Pharmasave store owners and their teams and their communities across the province.”

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There will soon be a few more owners, too. Pharmasave is in the midst of a pretty heady expansion strategy and wants to add 100 stores in the next five years, not bad given that the chain launched in Ontario in 1997 with just 17 stores. Nationwide, Pharmasave, which was founded in 1981 in British Columbia, has more then 600 stores in nine provinces, so roughly half its business is now in Ontario. Sherman says the chain’s growth is built on knowing its customers, rather than trying to be all things to all people as the big-box retailers are having success doing. “We’re like the Cheers of pharmacy,” he says, referring to the fictional place where everybody knows your name. “Our owners have typically either been born in the community in which they’re operating, or they’ve moved there, or they live within a kilometre of their store.”

Regardless of the technological advancements being made in both the pharmaceutical and retail industries, Sherman says Canadians inherently like to support people who live and work within their communities and buying medicine, diapers and the like is still a relationship-based undertaking. “We have stores that have been in their communities 50, 60, 70 years and, in one community, 150 years since 1865,” he says. “People like to be recognized.”

That said, giant brands such as Shoppers Drug Mart, Rexall and Jean Coutu are doing just fine in the name recognition game, but Sherman says Pharmasave provides a grassroots alternative and will continue to expand as long as there are entrepreneurial-minded pharmacists coming out of the universities or who decide along the way they want to own their own business. Of course, the one thing the industry has in its favour, he says, is that Canada has an aging population and those who are younger are taking greater care than ever to keep from being sick later on.

As for his time in the spotlight, Sherman is glad it’s finally dying down. “It certainly isn’t going to be part of our 2018 branding strategy,” he says. “There’s a lot going on at Pharmasave, which is what I get paid for.” FPM