Sears (Home Appliances): GE Geospring Water Heater

Sears (Home Appliances): GE Geospring Water Heater

Sears

Discovery

Billups Design was brought in by Rebus Farms, a creative vendor for Sears, to create several digital ad campaigns in 2010. Sears' strong home appliance business was underperforming with its advertising. To drive business results for a new, high-end appliance - the GE GeoSpring water heater - the long-term strategy was to grab attention away from local contractors and DIY stores with a clear call to action for Sears.

The target consumer motivation was focused and urgent - "my hot water heater is broken!" And while the GeoSpring offered "green" benefits, these were seen as secondary to the primary need to save money on a $1500+ considered purchase.

In collaboration with Rebus Farms, Billups Design saw an opportunity to:

  • improve the user experience as this customer began the purchase process online
  • optimize creative and media on the path from ads to www.sears.com
  • drive motivated buyers to research online and purchase at local Sears stores or with Blue Crew sales teams

Design

After in-depth marketing briefings from the Sears business unit team, Rebus Farms and Billups Design created ads that communicated key benefits in a new way to this highly motivated, imminent buyer of a new water heater.

To help the customer quickly move from "I need" to "I bought a GeoSpring at Sears", Billups Design recommended and implemented:

  • Videos and rebate information to drive online research
  • Click-to-call technology in display and mobile ads

And critical to the recommendations, we all worked closely with Sears’ internal and external teams to monitor and optimize results.

Delivery

Although new to the Sears / Rebus partnership, Billups Design was quickly able to be a catalyst for improved collaboration between client, media, creative, and mobile teams.

Creative optimization during the Geospring campaign produced results well above retail and Sears’ averages:

  • Increased product sales significantly
  • Increased CTR and decreased CPC to mobi and www product pages – a key factor to driving in-store purchase as 89% of purchases start with online research

The hot results?

  • In the six months the campaign has run, sales of the GE GeoSpring experienced triple-digit growth and the campaign was recognized as one of Sears' most successful digital ad campaigns of 2010.