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A three-minute TV commercial. Yes, three minutes. The logo of the brand behind the spot — a major brand as well, does not appear until the last five seconds and a new CMO who believes that "transactions alone do not build loyalty." Oh yeah, the aforementioned TV spot is all about love between... two houses. And over the course of the entire three minutes there is no mention of a sale or discount of any kind.
And, get this: There were no shorter versions of the spot created. No 15- or 30-second mini spot to run on traditional TV. No, when this spot ran on network TV, it ran in its entirety, all three minutes.
What in the world is going on here? Has the whole world gone mad?
Well that's a matter for another time but I can tell you it was quite refreshing to see long form content (see the spot on the next page) like this that tells a great story and doesn't jam a sale or even a brand down the viewer's throat.
I had a chance to speak with Lowe’s CMO, Marci Grebstein about the campaign dubbed “House Love” which launched earlier this year.
Steve Olenski: How did the "House Love" campaign come about?
Marci Grebstein: With House Love, we wanted to create an emotional connection and make consumers think about Lowe’s differently -- beyond the products and transactions. Home is already an emotional space for people and storytelling is a powerful way to create that connection. We worked closely with BBDO, our lead creative advertising agency, and developed the concept and creative brief. Ultimately, we wanted the story to reflect our brand purpose of helping people love where they live.
Olenski: In addition to online, has the spot run on traditional TV and if so where and what was the rationale behind the decision?
Grebstein: "House Love" started as an online-only spot, but there was such great traction and positive viewer engagement that we decided to leverage it further by airing it on TV. The "House Love" spot aired in its full length during the season finale of The Voice on NBC on May 23. Since the spot includes a remake of the classic Carpenters song, "We've Only Just Begun," we thought it was a natural fit to air the spot during a show about music. We also ran it several times on HGTV, which is an outlet viewers often turn to for DIY inspiration within our industry.
Olenski: What are the specific metrics/KPIs that you're measuring for House Love?
Grebstein: When measuring "House Love," we are looking at several things including ad recall (did the viewer remember it was from Lowe’s), brand interest (did the viewer search for Lowe’s after watching it) and cross-media effectiveness (did the video make consumers more receptive to hearing about Lowe’s through other channels). Ultimately, we want people to think differently about Lowe’s and create that emotional connection with them. Through a Google survey, initial results showed that the impact on consumers’ behavior and attitude towards Lowe’s is very positive.
Olenski: This campaign is very much about brand awareness vs. driving sales. What kind of response did you get from the CEO and/or board when this idea was initially pitched?
Grebstein: The culture at Lowe’s is one that truly encourages diversity of thought and sharing new perspectives and ideas. When we presented the idea of needing to build a stronger, emotional connection with consumers to our Board, they were supportive and empowered us leaders to test and learn. This was a new concept to Lowe’s and we had thoughtful conversations about it. But we were all in agreement that we could learn how the consumer responds to this kind of messaging and were willing to put it into the market.
Olenski: Far too many brands feel the need to try and sell something via every communication. Clearly that is not the intent here in this campaign. Obviously sales always matter but there is a right way and wrong way to go about it, especially in today's world. Do you agree?
Grebstein: Yes. This was really our first effort to create new brand messaging since the recession. There is research that shows how consumers that become fully connected to a brand builds loyalty and delivers sales in the long-run. Transactions alone do not build loyalty. Of course, we need to focus on sales but we want to deliver the full brand experience as well. When someone is looking for inspiration and creative ideas, we want them to think of Lowe’s.
We also consider how consumers want to receive information and how each platform we use delivers our message a bit differently. Understanding how to best utilize each platform, and utilizing the channels available to us in the most authentic way – that is what works. You can sell to the consumer by creating relevant, creative, inspiring content. It doesn’t have to always be about products and price.
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I absolutely love the fact that Lowe's created a spot, an incredibly long spot by industry standards and ran it on traditional TV. I also love the fact that they made the decision to not force a sale message in. They are in fact adhering to The N.A.S. Doctrine, my personal edict to all brands. Read it. Learn it. Live it.
