Strategy for year-long 100th Anniversary nets 8% sales increase
For over 17 years, Grand Home Furnishings has been a retail marketing client of The Yaffe Group. We created a campaign that took advantage of Grand’s 100th Anniversary to remind customers of their exemplary service, quality furniture and on-going community involvement. This was a year-long celebration of a truly remarkable company with a stellar local reputation.
The 100th Year Anniversary celebration kicked off with a six-week launch campaign. We used this event to introduce a new tagline that truly captures Grand’s corporate culture: “Making People Happy is What We Do Best.”
Another impactful feature of the campaign was the creation of the Grand Happiness Foundation. The foundation’s mission was to create charitable giving to women, children and educational charities in Grand’s markets. Over the course of the year, we wanted to create “100 Gestures of Happiness.” In each market, employees suggested charities they truly believed in that fit these criteria. Grand donated to each charity some furniture, cash or both. Employees took part in the charities by giving their time – cleaning, painting, fixing, participating in events, etc.
The primary media objective for the campaign kick-off was to create buzz around the Anniversary, new tagline and the launch of Grand’s community initiative, the Happiness Foundation. For the launch, we recommended a mix of different lengths of TV commercials in order to extend Grand’s media buy and reach the target audience across multiple dayparts. We used a mix of :30, :15, :10 and :05 second spots. This strategy was designed to help increase consideration for Grand and The Happiness Foundation by generating awareness and familiarity through a frequency driven campaign. Radio was also used to target specific audiences and geographic areas.
Yaffe’s media department negotiated with 40+ media partners to enhance the buy through added value contributions. Expenditures were leveraged to secure additional elements that increased Grand’s on-air presence and accomplished other goals (i.e. drive traffic to the Grand Happiness Foundation website). Some examples include bonus spots, sponsorship billboards and vignettes.
Media relationships and budgets were leveraged to extend the organic exposure of Grand’s “100 Gestures.” We sent out press releases to the sales departments, asking our sales reps to make sure they were presented to the right person at each station. We asked our media partners to encourage their community outreach department to pay attention to all the important charities and shelters Grand’s employees were helping. Additionally, Yaffe’s media team secured media coverage and interviews during the local charity events.
At the close of the year-long campaign, Grand’s annual sales increased by 8% over the previous year. Yaffe created a branding strategy and increased exposure to motivate consumers and maximize Grand’s presence as a vital part of the community. It not only connected with their external audience, it had far-reaching internal benefits – with many employees enjoying and bonding over the “Grand Gestures” they participated in.
