How the Carpetright brand was finally dusted off

Retail formula Carpetright is entering a competitive market in which it operates as an established player targeting both consumers and business customers, with a focus on quality, affordability and service in the flooring and window coverings sector. From one central insight, we developed a media strategy to improve Carpetright's image and thus drive consumer consideration.

Challenge

Carpetright is still seen as a stuffy "flooring retailer" with sheds full of rolls of carpet and shag-smoking salespeople. This image puts brand consideration and preference under pressure, limiting sales growth. The assignment was to clean up the stuffy image and position Carpetright as a modern home furnishing brand that also appeals to women.

A key challenge is that Carpetright operates in a highly competitive market, consisting of DIY/home improvement stores/webshops and local players. With a modest 1.4% Share-of-Spend, an impactful media strategy was necessary.

Research

Women are key decision makers with different motivations
In recent years the communication was very functional and price-driven. Carpetright appealed mainly to men, while our research, the Insights-Scan, showed that women are important decision-makers in the customer journey and are more often looking for inspiration and style advice.

Different approach in communication needed
The woman as the most important decision maker requires a completely different approach in communication and media. Carpetright needed not only to reach more women, but also to be more appealing in order to be considered as a brand. This meant more focus on inspiration, quality and service.

Strategy: plan of action

Reaching new target group with branded content
Because Carpetright has a lot to tell the new target group, branded content became part of the strategy. This is ideally suited to bring about an image change and be distinctive in a market dominated by traditional communication. The popular TV program "Buying Without Watching" (KZK), with approximately 1.5 million viewers per episode, a relevant umbrella and high selectivity among women, proved to be the perfect fit.

Combination of multiple media assets
The campaign went beyond a branded content collaboration on Television. A video series was created for social media with Roos Reedijk, known as the home stylist of KZK. A classic TV commercial also played an important role to strengthen KZK's impact and increase its reach.

Smart timings for longer impact
The video series was used as a bridge to the TV campaign, and the reach and effect of the KZK collaboration was planned over a longer period of time, as the program including in-program items could be viewed on Videoland all this time. This deliberately gave the campaign more length, which was important because this target audience can be in-market at any time.

Result

Research provided insight into strong results, including synergy effects from the campaign.

Image among women:

  • Inspiring: +12%
  • Service-oriented +8%
  • Expert +9%

Brand funnel effects overall campaign:

  • Consideration +129%
  • Preference +60%