In 2018, Darty’s CEO Enrique Martinez decided to put sustainability at the core of the company strategy and not just as something nice to say. A strategy that aims to fight against overconsumption, obsolescence and ressources exhaustion, by offering people solutions to increase the longevity of their products at every step of their lifecyle, even if it means selling less. That’s why this strategy led Darty to shift it business model, in order to keep growing by finding value beyond sales. But you may have the vision and the tools, it’s useless as long as people don’t embrace it. At the end, the power and so the change belong to all of us, as consumers and that’s why the objective was nothing more than onboarding them on Darty’s journey.

Let’s be fair, it’s a simple idea that looks like quite obvious once you have the problem in mind. However, it has never been done before. It’s about changing the rules of reviews to ensure that we let time take its course, by asking people to share their feedback after more than one year of use.

Simple, but powerful to change habits without changing habits.

Simple, but powerful to reframe the way we assign value to things.

Simple, but powerful to help people make choices through the lens of long-term.

Simple, but powerful to instill this new mindset at the core of the commerce machine.

First, we needed to align the brand strategy on the company strategy, to make it clear and heard by people. So we revamped the brand platform and defined a new tagline “Let’s make it last” and launched an advertising campaign to promote this mindset while increasing the awareness of Darty’s solutions. But then, more than communicating the business model shift led by Darty, we thought that we had to lead a cultural shift. It was all about fighting against a mindset that’s deeply anchored into all of us for decades: the prevalence of short-term over the long-term. This is how our psychology works, what there is here and now speaks louder than what will be. From advertising to customer experience, we needed to act to escape the tyranny of the short-term, to change the way people assign value to things and ultimately to change the way people make their choices.

Let’s be fair, it’s a simple idea that looks like quite obvious once you have the problem in mind. However, it has never been done before. It’s about changing the rules of reviews to ensure that we let time take its course, by asking people to share their feedback after more than one year of use.

Simple, but powerful to change habits without changing habits.

Simple, but powerful to reframe the way we assign value to things.

Simple, but powerful to help people make choices through the lens of long-term.

Simple, but powerful to instill this new mindset at the core of the commerce machine.

First, the launching advertising campaign on the “Let’s make it last” has delivered strong results (source: CSA institute, 2023):

• A trustworthy brand: +23 points

• A leading brand: +17 points

• A brand that offers products with good value for money: +19 points

• A brand I feel connected to: +23 points

• Desire to learn more about the brand: +18 points

• Desire to recommend the brand: +26 points

• Desire to purchase products offered by Darty: +21 points

Then, when it comes to the long-lasting reviews, the ambition was to push the initiative to our consumers (to date 3 845 663 consumers have been reached, for 18 225 products to be reviewed) but also to anchor it at an industry level. And we worked in collaboration with l’Ademe (French Governmental Agency for Ecological Transition).