Home Depot Paints a Masterpiece CampaignPublished: July 2011 | By Yahoo!
For today’s retailer, conveying core brand values like quality and affordability to consumers is critical. By spotlighting an engaging free sample offer on the Yahoo! mail login page, The Home Depot® was able to build strong brand awareness with over 24 million Americans in just 24 hours, significantly increasing both purchase intent and actual conversions on a new line of products.
The Challenge
The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, offers distinctive and innovative products to consumers at affordable prices. To this end, the retailer created an exclusive brand of interior and exterior paint with Martha Stewart LivingTM, a trusted source of DIY inspiration for home improvement projects. But in today’s competitive retail market, The Home Depot needed to drive awareness and purchase intent of this new product while strengthening consumers’ association of the brand with quality and affordability.
“The Martha Stewart Living paint line offers a solution for consumers looking to coordinate a variety of products and colors throughout the home,” said Gordon Erickson, senior vice president of Décor, The Home Depot. “The partnership with Martha Stewart Living enables us to further drive unique product design along with enhancing our know-how, all while honoring our commitment to everyday low prices.”
The Home Depot wanted to introduce their new paint product in a striking, unique way, without having to worry about competing for space or attention on a crowded page. The company wanted an exclusive, attention grabbing canvas where it could create a sense of added value for consumers.
The Solution
Delivering Unique Reach
The Yahoo! Login Takeover Ad afforded The Home Depot a non-traditional, expansive canvas on a page visited by one in ten Americans each day. The page features only the log-in form, and is uncluttered by any other advertising messages. As the exclusive Login Takeover Ad sponsor, The Home Depot enjoyed 100% share of voice for its new paint products.
Highlighting an Engaging Offer
The Home Depot Takeover Ad on the log-in page fills up almost the entire web browser, focusing users on its brand without being interrupted by competing content or brand messages. The brand maximized the impact of the large Yahoo! canvas by featuring an evocative photograph of an elegant home interior, with walls painted in beautifully contrasting colors. More importantly, the retailer grabbed the user’s attention with an attractive but simple call-to-action to get an eight-ounce sample of paint with the purchase of one or more samples. The brand created a real sense of urgency for consumers to act by limiting the offer to just one day.
The Yahoo! Login Takeover Ad was redefined as a branding tool by The Home Depot, creating a time-sensitive incentive for its customers to take action. The takeover included a button that sent a user to a landing page to make a purchase and redeem the offer. The ad presented the retailer with the opportunity to share its brand message on a beautiful canvas with unique-to-Yahoo! reach.
Home Depot Paints a Masterpiece Campaign
The Results
Brand Awareness
The campaign also positively impacted associations of The Home Depot with two core brand values: quality and affordability. Among consumers already familiar with Martha Stewart Living products, there was a 23% lift in the perception that The Home Depot offers top-quality products. These consumers were also 13% more likely to associate the brand with affordable prices, and 9% more likely to perceive The Home Depot as competitively priced compared to other brands.
Competitive Advantage
Overall, the campaign generated a substantially higher number of unique visitors for The Home Depot, increasing online brand engagement and taking away visits from competitors. HomeDepot.com experienced a 33% increase in visits during the first week of exposure among those who saw the ad. The lift stayed strong, with 20% more visits to the brand’s website in the two weeks post-exposure. Additionally, competitive visits dropped 10% and competitive pageviews dropped by 36% within the first week of exposure.
Engagement on Search
The engagement carried over to search activity with relevant brand terms, soaring immediately after the day-long ad was featured. The Home Depot realized an 18% increase in search activity on its brand in the two weeks following the takeover, among those who saw the ad, while competitive search activity dropped 15% during the same time period. Overall, The Home Depot experienced an 8% lift in share of engagement in the category (visits/minutes/pages).
The campaign also improved the performance of The Home Depot’s search marketing efforts. Inbound traffic from paid searches related to the new paint products increased 75% over the three weeks prior to the test.
Leads and Sales
The one-day campaign also translated into leads and sales for the retailer, lifting consumer intent to purchase Martha Stewart Living products by 22%. The average basket size that included a Martha Stewart Living paint sample also experienced a double-digit increase.
Customers receiving the free sample bought a remarkable nine times more paint samples online than customers who bought samples online in the three weeks prior to the test. The HomeDepot.com conversion rate for paint samples was eight times the average rate in the three weeks prior to the test.
“Partnering with Yahoo! offered us an additional way to build awareness for this enhancement to our paint product offerings,” said Trish Mueller senior vice president and chief marketing officer. “The campaign effectively highlighted the interior paint palette and the fact that it will be available in 8-ounce tint-able testers, and that 12 of ‘Martha’s Picks’ will be available pre-tinted.”
About The Home Depot: The Home Depot is the world’s largest home improvement specialty retailer, with 2,245 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, ten Canadian provinces, Mexico and China.
Download this case study.
Yahoo! Advertising offerings are unique, we have the science, art, and scale to meet any campaign objective – our informed sales force can assist you in structuring your campaign. Contact us today.