Hard work to beat last year's success

2019 was a great success for the collaboration between Aller Media, Obs Bygg and PHD. Norwegians are world champions at renovating - and Obs Bygg wants to inspire people to realize their dreams. The goal for the new year was to make the already great campaign even better by showcasing seasonal products at the best prices on the market.

- We had clear goals for the campaign - and for what our collaboration would contribute to. We had worked hard for the results in 2019, and the big question was: Can we top it?

This is according to Josephine Messa, Strategic Group Account Manager at Aller Media. The main goals of the campaign were to increase awareness of Obs Bygg's online store in the new year, and to build customers' knowledge of the retail chain's "Price Promise".

Online shopping is becoming increasingly important to give customers what they want. Although the construction industry is still driven by physical retail, online sales are growing steadily. Obs Bygg's "click and collect" and "home delivery" services are experiencing strong percentage growth.

- The aim is to make it easy for customers to choose whether they want to shop online or in a physical store. Obs Bygg has made it possible for you as a customer to choose what suits you best. We focused on this - and reinforced it - in the campaign. No matter where you shop, it should be easy to do so in a good and safe way.

Before we get to the results of the campaign, let's take a closer look at what was done in the engine room to achieve the high ambitions.

A question of timing

Timing is everything when it comes to reaching customers, and with the lessons learned from the 2019 campaign fresh in mind, it was important to make Obs Bygg as visible as possible during the high season. Therefore, the campaign was moved from June-September to May-August.

Another fine-tuning was the design of the ads themselves.

- "The most important change was that we went from nine product placements to six - and that we created more movement in the format. We ran a test on both the 2019 ad and the new one for 2020, and saw that we became even clearer with fewer elements," says Messa.

- And we saw that the communication reached the readers. The key KPIs of knowledge about Obs Bygg's "price promise" and awareness of the online store stood out even more. Based on the test, we created a completely new format - which we used across the total of four versions of the full-screen format that went live in 2020.

Another innovation was to use geo-steering of the ads, so that the weekly ads delivered through mobile XL banners were aimed at all those living in the area around an Obs Bygg store. This was coupled with a TV commercial during the same period, on exactly the same promotional products.

- What was your biggest takeaway from 2019?

- 2019 was the first time we were selected as a strategic partner, and the first time we ran a campaign for Obs Bygg. This meant that we prepared some of the material during the campaign. In 2020, we had everything ready before we went live.

- That must have made a big difference?

- "Yes, it resulted in a more streamlined delivery and a common thread throughout the campaign. We've had a close dialogue throughout, which has allowed us to adjust and optimize on an ongoing basis," says Messa.

A collaboration that delivered on all levels

To cut a long story short: The results from the successful year 2019 were thoroughly beaten! The campaign had 52 million page views - and 182,270 clicks to Obs Bygg's online store. The latter represents an increase of eight percent compared to last year.

On the key parameters of knowledge of Obs Bygg's "price promise" and awareness of the online store, the campaign saw a tremendous increase compared to last year.

- If we look specifically at knowledge of Obs Bygg's "price promise", we saw an increase of 17 percentage points. That's actually a boost of 106 percent! When it comes to online store awareness, the increase was an amazing 25 percentage points, which corresponds to a boost of 58 percent.

Other parameters such as "Recall", "Knowledge", "Choice set" and "Preference" showed significant increases. Trade increased by a staggering 75 percent.

The figures from Obs Bygg themselves also indicate that the campaign optimization bore fruit. Regardless of whether you are looking at traffic, revenue or sales modeling figures: The increase from Aller outperformed the total on all fronts.

Traffic to the online store increased significantly, and traffic from Aller increased by as much as nine percent more than total traffic. If we look at the sales modeling, they show increased ROI for all media investments for Obs Bygg - and here, too, we see a higher percentage growth from Aller than for the total.

- Sales in Obs Bygg's online store also increased significantly in 2020. Sales isolated from Aller Media increased by 95 percent more than the total!

- Wow, that's quite a result?

- "We couldn't be more pleased with the collaboration. It's really cool to see that we can contribute to good growth," says Josephine Messa.

Our partner PHD also praises the campaign. Thomas Johansen of the media agency notes that the campaign has achieved "extremely solid increases linked to value creation".

- This bodes well for continued collaboration?

- Yes, absolutely! We work closely together in many areas, which is why we have achieved these results. I'm looking forward to continuing this journey together with Obs Bygg and PHD. We have high goals for the future.