And how A Delightful Promotion intercepted me.
When the email arrived with the subject line “Bath Savings > Up to 40% off,” I knew it was THAT time at The Home Depot: The Biggest Bath Event of the Year. With one click from the email, I can visit the weekly ads for January 25–Feb 1(Mass) or January 22–29(Pro).
You might ask, “Do you still look at the weekly ad?” Weekly ads (circulars) are super nostalgic. As a boy, I remember pulling the comics and circular ads from the Sunday paper. My Mom and I would sit and read them at the kitchen table. Oh, and my career in retail advertising began at Best Buy, working on these same ads. In the early 2000s, before it was custom to receive five emails a day from retailers, the Sunday ad circular served as a single source to drive traffic to big box stores. Now, shoppers might view one a year on Black Friday.
The Home Depot digital ecosystem has me hooked. I click the local ad from the email and browse it here. Once I’m finished with the weekly ad, I head back to the front page of HomeDepot.com. Awareness of “The Biggest Bath Event of the Year” in the prime spot. Click to visit a preselected category page (shown below) labeled “Bath Event Bath.” The omnichannel excellence The Home Depot is known for is fully displayed in pure glory. Even my app knows I’m about “The Biggest Bath Event of the Year.” Outstanding. After the phones below, we’re headed to the store.
HomeDepot.com’s header promo connects to “Our Biggest Bath of the Year” and even features a Kohler offer in rotation.
On the HomeDepot.com category page products can be easily discovered with buttons. In this instance, an Installation Services banner with a plumber rather than a carpet installer would create more awareness for category-relevant services. Who puts carpet in a bathroom? Ew.
The app provides an experience similar to the web but doesn’t include installation services. At The Home Depot, I use the UPC scanner quite often. It’s convenient in this app.
Facebook engages followers with a question, ” If you could update one thing about your bathroom, what would it be?”
Pinterest has no new organic posts to connect to the campaign.
Instagram has no new organic posts to connect to the campaign.
At MarketingLab, we ran programs at The Home Depot for over a decade. I always told the team, “Start at the store” or “Walk around the store.”
In this channel, the share of in-store sales may be higher than in any other channel. Many products can’t be shipped economically in the DIY/home improvement channel. In fact, since 2020, online sales share at The Home Depot has decreased. What happens at the store is essential in the DIY/Home Improvement channel. What other big box channel hosts family craft projects on weekends? For real.
When I arrived at The Home Depot in Woodbury, MN, I expected to see vanities, toilets, and faucets at the front of the store. There would be a giant banner over the toilets stocked on the top shelves reading “The Biggest Bath Event of the Season,” and all the faucet quarter pallet displays and sign backers my team made in the past would be lined up straight from a fresh reset the night before.
You can understand my disappointment when you see the front-of-store photos in this post. No vanities. No faucets. No matching hardware sets. No toilets. No sign of “The Biggest Bath Event of the Year” in the front of the store. We’re stuck with organization and the same value packs of tools and accessories I’ve been picking through for the past three weeks. Hey, there are some well-priced router bits to be found here! Maybe I’m just early on “The Biggest Bath Event of the Year” store reset. I’ll check back this weekend to see if anything has changed.
Since the front of the store had no signs of “The Biggest Bath Event of the Year,” I headed to the aisles. Hiding near the center store aisle, I see the usual suspects. End caps displaying Kohler faucets and toilets are prominent in this store area. I notice shipper displays with value signs printed out at the store. There is a Delta faucet stack in front of a Kohler display. I’m sure Kohler loves that. Kohler has a fair amount of branded aisle cut-ins in this Woodbury store. This is the first time I’ve noticed this in the section, and I’ll do some digging around at other stores to see if this is a scaled approach. When Delta Faucets was one of my clients, we often pitched ideas like this, but they were rarely executed at scale. Kudos to you, Kohler!
Here’s what we were looking for at the front-of-store. A color end cap on the center aisle stands across from a Kohler faucet end cap.
In the aisle, but near the center store, Kohler cut-ins present a “bathroom-like” vignette—nothing like putting a $44 faucet in front of all those beauties. During previous bath events, shippers like these occupied the front of the store.
Deep in the vanity aisle near the back of the store, Moen gets into the mix—no fancy displays or shippers, just a sign printed at the store featuring a hot price.
Here's the deal. What a delight!
Here’s the delightful promotion I mentioned in this post’s subhead. We are low on paper towels at home, and I always love scoring Bounty on a deal. It’s the best. Sorry, Brawny and Kirkland. There’s nothing like the Quicker Picker-Upper! The command on this display is fantastic. The offer is clear. The QR code scans, and I can redeem the promo online. Better yet, the whole aisle is filled with cleaning supplies. Excellent execution on this promotion. Since this post has some history, I’ll save how MarketingLab launched P&G cleaning products in the DIY and Home Improvement channels for another time.
When there's a store, can an Event be online only?
While at checkout with my P&G cleaning supplies, I caught the tail end of the in-store radio announcement: “Our Biggest Bath Event of the Year is at HomeDepot.com.” Well, there you have it. That wasn’t communicated well in the execution. Nowhere did I see “Only on HomeDepot.com” adjacent to “Our Biggest Bath Event of the Year.” Here’s how you fared on this campaign:
- Email: Pass
- Local Ad: Pass
- Pro Inclusion: Pass
- Website front page: Pass
- Website category page: Pass
- Organic Social Media: Meh
- App Inclusion: Pass
- In-store execution: Fail
