Due to the proliferation of more digital channels and streaming services – and brand-owned platforms and channels than ever before, Branded Entertainment and Custom Content has exploded in the US. The practice is now widely accepted by most brands at varying levels. The challenge remains, with television broadcast partners, to go beyond their platforms with derivative content that a brand can distribute broadly across their owned, earned and paid assets.

We successfully worked with NBCU to develop a fully integrated plan in-show, in commercial time and off-air that allowed Lowe’s to go much deeper with transactional consumer tactics and messaging tied to activity in store.

Broadcast standards and practices typically don’t restrict subject matter like family-friendly home improvement. The more organic and meaningful to the story line the brand role is, the easier the job becomes of getting brand content cleared.

NBC marketed the show on TV, digital and digital-out-of-home. Nate Berkus participated in PR efforts and authored editorials for Lowe’s magazine, Creative Ideas.

In a first-time ever move, NBC tagged an advertiser in network-owned promotional inventory. Lowe’s-tagged tune-ins ran in high-profile programming and Lowe’s was featured in a teaser that ran across NBC platforms (140MM impressions).

Lowe’s provided significant reciprocal marketing program support through prominent placement in weekly newspaper insertions (440MM circulation) and e-blasts (32MM circulation). Lowe’s promoted American Dream Builders (ADB) in all 1800 stores through signage highlighting products featured in-show and co-branded videos on 13,000 televisions.

Lowe’s ADB partnership delivered against the campaign goal of building brand relevancy leading into the key sales season, spring. An average of 2.5MM people tuned-in each week and the digital videos garnered 15.6MM views. Lowe’s saw a 50% increase in unaided brand awareness. 71% of viewers were inspired to take action with home projects, delivering on our goal to etch away at the $96bn unspent on home improvement projects. 41% of viewers thought of Lowe’s as stylish, solidifying Lowe’s lead against its major competitor.

As a result of Lowe’s seamless integration into every consumer touch-point, engagement levels were unprecedented. We shattered NBC’s sweepstakes benchmark with 415,000 entries, earning 20 times more engagement then NBC’s best-performing show The Voice. By building a custom digital destination with robust content on Lowes.com, we extended the user experience, allowing us to not only capitalize on NBC’s audience, but also expand it. The Lowe’s microsite garnered more traffic than the NBC show site as consumers were empowered to find their own style and tackle a home improvement project.