Clas Ohlson & AdSmart

Combining the power of TV with precision targeting to advertise Clas Ohlson hardware stores

Background

Clas Ohlson is a Swedish modern hardware retailer and mail-order firm that specialises in home, leisure, electrical and multimedia products.
It is one of the biggest of its type in Scandinavia but only opened its first UK store in 2008, using TV advertising for the first time in 2012. There are now 12 stores in England and Wales supported by a transactional website.

As a challenger brand in a competitive market Clas Ohlson wanted to raise awareness and drive footfall to their regional stores and traffic to their transactional website.

To promote their brand Clas Ohlson optimised their linear TV campaign with a tailored AdSmart campaign.

Clas Ohlson were able to combine the power of TV advertising with increased targeting precision to ensure their advert was only served to their chosen audience in regions and metropolitan areas with a Clas Ohlson store.

Objectives

Reach a targeted audience identified as most likely to purchase products from Clas Ohlson

Drive traffic and sales to Clas Ohlson’s 12 national stores and their transactional website

Targeting

Clas Ohlson were able to superserve their audience by only delivering their advert to Young and Mature Homesharers and Families of Mid to Very High Affluence in areas of the country with a Clas Ohlson store.

This approach enhanced their traditional TV advertising by increasing the frequency of message exposure to core Clas Ohlson prospects.

The 30” creative communicated the main messages of the campaign: Clas Ohlson stores “…have a wide range of products”, “…provide everyday practical solutions”, “…are value for money”.

The campaign budget was £57K and ran four weeks across May and June 2014. It reached 219K Sky households of mid to very high affluence with homesharers or families, delivering over a million impressions.

The AdSmart campaign successfully drove key performance indicators by boosting campaign cut-through, increasing brand prominence and growing purchase consideration.

Top Line Results

In order to evaluate the success of the campaign Sky appointed the research agency BDRC Continental to conduct web survey interviews amongst different sets of Sky customers.

Based on household characteristics and campaign exposure, respondents were classified into three groups:

A test group of homes containing the chosen target audience who were exposed to the AdSmart campaign
A demographically matched control group who were not exposed to the AdSmart campaign
A less targeted comparison group consisting of ABC1 adults who were not exposed to the Sky Adsmart Campaign Results
Despite running a heavy traditional TV linear campaign, the addition of AdSmart activity succeeded in boosting campaign cut through. The added frequency of exposure to the advert on the highly targeted Clas Ohlson audience significantly increased recall of the creative.

As a challenger brand in a competitive market sector some of the harder metrics like spontaneous awareness and hence familiarity were unsurprisingly low. However, positive shifts were seen in the key performance indicators; prompted brand awareness and purchase consideration.

Campaign Relevance
The AdSmart campaign worked hardest amongst key campaign relevance metrics. The target audience were more likely to shop in hardware stores and the key messages of the campaign resonated more so amongst the targeted group than the less targeted linear comparison group.

Key Message Take Out
The Clas Ohlson AdSmart campaign resonated more with the targeted AdSmart audience of Young and Mature Homesharers and Families of Mid to Very High Affluence than the less targeted comparison audience of ABC1 adults.

Interest and perceptions of the advertisement were much higher amongst the AdSmart targeted audience

Higher interest amongst the AdSmart audience saw key messages land with impact.

Client Quote

“The opportunities AdSmart opens up in targeting our customers both demographically and regionally are fantastic for our brand. After this successful trial we look forward to using AdSmart in future campaigns and target core prospects even more efficiently at a post code level and store by store basis”

Clas Ohlson

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