CN Tower

The Client

At a height of 553.33 meters (1,815 ft., 5 inches), Canada's National Tower (CN Tower) is an engineering wonder, award-winning dining and entertainment destination, and has been Toronto's "must-see" attraction for over four decades. The CN Tower was visited by more than 1.98 million people last year, including 370,000 guests at 360 Restaurant and 18,000 guests at EdgeWalk.

The Situation

Located in the heart of Toronto’s Entertainment District, the CN Tower sought to transform how its organization was perceived and enjoyed, guided by its mission: “Elevate every moment, celebrate infinite possibilities.” The project involved building a new digital experience to address the needs of three distinct attractions to highlight the uniqueness of the 360 Restaurant, Edgewalk, and the CN Tower adventures.

To meet this goal, The Tower needed a new digital experience with a responsive, mobile-first design to encourage residents and tourists to return following Ontario’s reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Challenge

The goal of the CN Tower website redesign was to enhance the user experience, provide consistency with the Tower’s refreshed brand positioning, and ensure continued legislative compliance with accessibility standards.

Recognition of each business unit’s audience type differences and similarities was integral to the digital transformation. The CN Tower website needed to highlight the uniqueness of the 360 Restaurant, Edgewalk, and the CN Tower attractions while maintaining a cohesive digital experience.

The Solution

CN Tower partnered with e-commerce agency Northern Commerce. The team at Northern developed a tailored approach to build an exceptional online experience across each core business unit, effectively identifying the Tower's primary audience to bridge gaps between silos, balance user and internal needs, and gather information on how to replace the legacy website. 

It was imperative to establish clear branding across all digital CN Tower platforms while maintaining a customized user experience specific to this property. By aligning the creative and technical plans with the marketing and branding strategy, Northern mitigated the disconnect from the legacy website. The new site features a visual tour experience of the CN Tower's attractions and amenities through the “Explore The Tower” page descending from the topmost location to the base. Users can browse an accessible catalog of the CN Tower’s offerings using simple scroll or keyboard interactions. 

Ultimately, the teams chose Acquia for the new Drupal 9 implementation, appreciating its security capabilities and uptime monitoring. Using Drupal Layout Builder and custom components for core pages gave authors more control over the site, such as site sub-section branding, which alters colored components depending on the core section rendered. And Drupal’s social media integrations mean the CN Tower website can strategically use social widgets, fetching feeds and data from appropriate social media channels to encourage user engagement and social sharing.

The Results

The new Drupal 9 implementation is a fully responsive, fast, beautiful, and easy-to-navigate website that features creative, imaginative, and attention-grabbing content in multiple languages. Integrations such as reveal animation can also be found throughout the primary pages, creating a content flow that adds elegance to the browsing experience. The new site also meets legislative compliance requirements with accessibility standards.