Build It Forward is the brainchild of Lowes where individuals from local communities nominate a deserving group that needs infrastructure help from damage caused by events such as climate change or the pandemic. According to Lowes’ Marisa Thalberg, Executive Vice President, Chief Brand and Marketing Officer, the process of receiving nominations was, in itself, a highly gratifying experience. “What made the process so beautiful was that those doing the nominating weren’t thinking about themselves, even though they needed help too,” she shared.
HGTV was the perfect choice for this effort. As Catherine Moran, Senior Vice President SVP, Integrated Ad Sales Marketing, Discovery, explained, “When they were looking for a partner for the 100 hometowns project, they naturally came to us. We've been in business with Lowes for over 26 years. They were a charter advertiser for HGTV. So we were natural partner based on our long history and because HGTV is built for this from a brand and content perspective. We tell great stories every day that inspire people to take action.”
Out of the 100 communities chosen, five were highlighted for a series on HGTV which premiered on Saturday, March 12 on HGTV and discovery+. While the community projects served as the jumping off point for the series storytelling, “the unexpected part is that the nominator too is surprised with a makeover of their own,” Thalberg explained. To help publicize the program and the initiative, Lowes is using signage in their stores and, Thalberg added, “We are giving our customers, as well as all 350,000 or so of our associates, a free 30 day subscription to discovery+.”
HGTV is also very active in marketing the initiative. Moran noted that, “We launched our streaming service discovery+ last year and we have world class content that really serves itself well to their initiative. Even our talent are great ambassadors to initiatives like this. This show is a five part series that launched on HGTV and across our HGTV go app, HGTV.com and d+. We're also launching a mid-form series which rolls out across those platforms as well and contents featured in high profile placements across those platforms.” Within Lowes stores, in addition to the 30 day free trial to discovery+, HGTV, “Just this week added a fire stick to that as an incentive to get people to sign up. Lowes has been a great partner to supporting the show in all the stores.”
“We touched 1.3 million Americans with these 100 communities,” noted Thalberg. In addition, more than 1,850 Lowes associates volunteered nearly 12,000 hours on the initiative – more than a year’s worth of time - across the 100 Hometowns projects. She noted that, “About 45,000 people or more are living below the poverty line, so you start to roll it up, there's a big impact that is real at an individual level. People can feel it.” In terms of a longer term goal, Lowes determined that this would become, “The center of our community action going forward. We're turning it into a five year, $100 million commitment to community impact projects. We've taken 100 hometowns and we're rebranding it as Lowes Hometowns. We're going to do keep doing these for the next five years 100 times, plus another 1,700 smaller projects a year. It's a lot of impact!” Thalberg stated.
HGTV’s goal is, as Moran explained, “To have impact on communities and, with Lowes, really make a difference. These are very deserving people that have dedicated their life to helping others so for HGTV to have the ability to reward them with their own personal renovation was super important to us.” She added, “From a partnership perspective, it was really important for us to help Lowes meet their goals and support their mission as well as show value to consumers who are HGTV fans and also Lowes consumers.”
The initiative, so far, has been very successful. Ratings are increasing each week and there has been, “Great engagement on social media,” noted Moran, who added, “People are eager to hear these stories and are commenting about how inspiring it is to see people really committed to their communities and making a difference. So far it's going really well.”
The hope is that the collaboration between Lowes and HGVT marks the beginning of a long term collaboration, “The beginning of a longer way of they're looking for content, we have stories to tell bringing it together, I think it's a very fresh and modern way of showing up together, and I think we were both very respectful of each other in the process,” noted Thalberg.
Synergy is everything in this ever expanding marketplace. Marketers are aware that, “Not everybody can do this right, so when you have these two brands that sit so well next to each other, like Lowes and HGTV, you have a lot of power and can go into the marketplace and make a difference,” concluded Moran.
This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com
Artwork by Charlene Weisler
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