The two biggest challenges The Home Depot faces in the Spring Sales Season are outside its control – weather and competitive noise.

The variability of the seasons has made it impossible for retailers to predict when Spring will “break” to bring people in-store for a new grill or fertilizer. Consumers don’t shop seasons on a calendar to suit retailers – they’ll buy a new lawnmower when their grass turns green and the sky turns blue. Global climate insecurity means it’s no longer possible for THD to know when and how to begin marketing. Sales are suffering as a result of a hugely lucrative sales season. We’re also up against a cluttered competitive landscape where consumers are served with an abundance of spring home improvement messaging. Last season, we set out to change the narrative, jumpstart sales, and put them on top as the retailer of choice for customers’ Spring needs.

Is it Spring yet?

Northern States are ready for Spring by early February, even if Mother Nature has different ideas. Our audience relishes the onset of warmer seasons, so our opportunity was to harness that anticipation and bring some joy to darker months.

A positive outcome of COVID-19 was that it brought a new generation of DIYers into the category. However, post-COVID, the number of and enthusiasm for home improvement projects waned. People still want the ‘lift’ of delivering projects, but inflation has made the cost of entry for big projects prohibitive. Purchase behavior suggests that enthusiasm had channeled into gardening.

The creative idea centered around communicating relevant Spring Projects and products across national and local markets using e-commerce tactics to combat the nuances in weather throughout the US to get consumers to go online or in-store to purchase.

Timing is dependent on when Spring warmth rolls across the country.

Introducing the earliest Spring campaign in THD history - combating competition and weather head-on, springing media across addressable channels, dynamically built to speak to what customers were experiencing when they looked out the window. Already hot out, Florida? Come grab some fresh herbs to get your garden started! Still cold, Kentucky? Here’s inspiration for Spring to come, (and of course the exact products needed to make it happen).

We built a foundation of personalization and regionalization with three tenents:

Create Ownable Whitespace harnessing the joy of anticipation – we made THD the only voice of inspiration, as early as February where Search trends tell us consumer are starting to research.

Local Messaging: National Scale – once Spring has arrived we kept serving localized, 1:1 messaging through Mother’s Day (14th May)

Seamless Shoppability Everywhere – a smooth shopping experience leveraging a commerce-driven approach that allows consumers to purchase directly within ad.

Our assertive approach was brought to life by crafting our insights into a 3-phased go-to-market approach.

In February and March, we seeded Spring communications on a National and Local level using Digital Audio and Display communicating live goods in various markets, fortifying with CTV Peacock Engagement Ads, and Good Morning America content integrations to drive project inspiration, and awareness of THD 2023 Spring Event nationally.

March-April, we amplified impressions - leveraging all channels to deliver a full-funnel approach ensuring consumer reach and competitor tackling in market. This was achieved nationally and locally through video channels, audio, display, influencer and social to communicate sales events and live goods.

April-May, we heightened market presence to go all-out during the key THD sales days. Using a full-funnel approach including shoppable commerce-driven tactics across all channels (video, audio, social, display), to maximize immediate action and foot traffic to stores.

Taking on Mother Nature is high risk, but proved to be high reward:

• Our approach delivered record breaking redacted live goods sales – the most in THD history – and increased our ROAS by 4X year over year. Our Dynamic Audio alone drove a highly impressive +8x in ROAS year over year.

• Launching THD’s longest Spring campaign to date also resulted in 800K incremental store visits YoY, +10% online visits YoY, and a +5% lift in Brand Perception.

• We also proved that Shoppability works – with all shoppable units within Short-form Digital Video driving double the ROAS vs. Standard units.