How a shoe company helped pioneer content marketing nearly a century ago.

Long before the CBC existed, and long before anyone had heard the word podcast, a shoe company from Fredericton was on the air.

Every Monday evening at 7:15, Canadians tuned their radio dials to CKGW in Toronto for the Hartt Shoe Broadcast. The year was 1931. The country was deep in the Great Depression. And a heritage Canadian footwear brand was doing something that most companies today still haven't figured out: building an audience through genuine content, not advertising.

A Show Worth Tuning In For

The Hartt Shoe Broadcast wasn't a commercial. It was a program.

Each week, Toronto-based osteopath Dr. Hubert J. Pocock delivered a health talk to listeners across the city. His topics ranged from "Be Sure of Your Feet" to "Relax and Keep Healthy" to "A Good Nervous System is Your Greatest Business Asset." Between segments, various musical performances were broadcast live from the studio in Toronto's famous King Edward Hotel.

The show was promoted weekly in the pages of both the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail, and Hartt's "Adjus-arch" shoes for men were sold exclusively in Toronto through one of Canada's most iconic retailers, The Robert Simpson Company Limited.

This was content marketing before the term existed. Hartt understood that trust is built over time, one conversation at a time.

The Station Behind the Broadcast

CKGW was no ordinary radio station. Launched in 1928, it was one of Canada's first high-power broadcasters, operating at 5,000 watts and positioning itself proudly as "Canada's Cheerio Station." It was a pioneer in Canadian radio at a time when the medium was still finding its voice.

That pioneering spirit wouldn't last long under private ownership.

In 1932, the federal government purchased CKGW and folded it into the newly created Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, the CRBC. It was one of the first major acts of Canadian broadcast regulation, a recognition that the airwaves were a public resource worth protecting.

The Prime Minister and the Shoe Company

The CRBC didn't create itself.

It was brought into existence by Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett, one of Canada's most consequential and often underappreciated leaders. R.B. Bennett served as Canada's 11th Prime Minister from 1930 to 1935, guiding the country through the depths of the Depression and establishing several of the institutional foundations that Canadians still rely on today.

Bennett was born in Hopewell Hill, New Brunswick. He understood Atlantic Canada not as a region to be managed from Ottawa, but as the place that shaped him.

He was also, by the historical record, a customer of the Hartt Shoe Company.

A shoe company from his home province. On a radio station his government would soon acquire. Building the audience that would become the foundation of a national broadcaster.

Some connections are too good to be coincidental.

From CRBC to CBC

The CRBC was the precursor to what Canadians know today as the CBC. In 1936, the Commission was dissolved and replaced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which inherited its infrastructure, its mandate, and its flagship station.

That station, the one that carried the Hartt Shoe Broadcast on Monday nights in 1931, still operates today as CBC's flagship English-language radio station in Canada.

Hartt was on the air before Canada had a national broadcaster. The station we broadcast on became the institution that defines Canadian public radio to this day.

What It Means

We tell this story because it says something true about what this company has always believed.

Hartt was founded in 1898 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the same region that produced the Prime Minister who built the groundwork for the CBC.

We have outfitted Canadian Prime Ministers, Kings of England, titans of industry, and five generations of Canadian leaders. We have survived two world wars, the Great Depression, and the complete transformation of the retail landscape.

Through all of it, the principle has remained the same. Build something worth trusting. Show up consistently and let quality speak for itself.

We are proud to be part of Canada's story since 1898.