BACKGROUND

GE Appliances, a subsidiary of Haier, was seeking to create a best-in-class co-op marketing program to build relationships and gain advantage with its retailer partners. These partners spanned from large nationals such as The Home Depot, Lowe’s, Costco and JCPenney, to small independents and regional chains.

Understanding the Customer Journey Path to Purchase showed how to invest

While there are multiple triggers for the appliance purchase journey, more than 80% of consumers started their research online through search, reading recommendations and reviews, and comparing retail offering. This was all before they would visit a physical retail store. Mobile was increasingly playing a role for in-store research as well as online purchases.

And so, whereas 80% of research started online, prior to the program, only 8% of co-op marketing funds were being spent online. The first step was to reverse this and create a digital first marketing strategy.

Seasonality Insights created white space opportunities

While emergency replacement can happen at all times, research into customers planning and buying behaviors uncovered insights that showed there were opportunities outside of the traditional retail holiday windows.

• Most professional home redesign projects start in spring and continue through summer, but research begins in the early winter months when owners begin conceptualizing and compile wishlists. This was an opportunity to provide rich design-led content to inspire and engage for future purchase
• DIY remodeling projects were often undertaken over holidays such as President’s Day and Memorial Day to use the extra free day. This required promoting products in advance of weekends and providing delivery and haul-away services as benefits.
• 60% of new home buyers would buy new appliances in the first six weeks after moving. This created an opportunity to act smart and nibble for local retailers to engage with people new to the neighborhood

Aligning Strategic Briefs to Brand, Personas and Retail Partners proved highly effective

Campaign briefs were constructed to align the positioning of the GE portfolio brand and the brand personas, customized to account for the insights from the retailers on their shopper behavior. This flexibility ensured the most effective impact of the campaigns and greatest engagement with the retail partners.

Measuring Performance and Creating Meaningful Metrics

Domo dashboards were built to report on the multiple campaigns that run throughout the year across different markets with different retail partners. In order to create meaningful insight into the overall effectiveness of the program, unique KPIs were created to demonstrate the effectiveness of the media reach and efficiency, and the customer engagement and in-store traffic generated.

Digital Creative used innovative ways to drive engagement and conversion

A strategic partnership with Disney for the release of ‘The RIse of Skywalker’ gave the oportunity for interactive creative, designed to let the user explore features and engage with the ad unit. This campaign lifted YOY sales by 10%.

Promoting the range of finishes utilized interactive mobile that allowed customers to select the different finishes to view the effect in a kitchen environment. Detailed reporting (below) illustrated the engagement through heatmaps and benchmarked clicks and engagement for this rich mobile ad unit.

AR video also enabled the user to envision a new appliance in their own kitchen environment.