Lowes Case
Lowe’s Companies, Inc.: Optimizing the Marketing Communications Mix
In early 2009 Lowe’s Companies, Inc., a leading home products retailer, launched an ambitious new project to gain customer mind share in the kitchen remodeling arena. The project, called the next-generation installed sales (NGIS) initiative, was a concerted effort by Lowe’s to expand its service offerings to become an end-to-end solution provider for customers’ kitchen remodeling projects.
Brad Simpson, a marketing manager at Lowe’s, explained that the NGIS would be a very different approach from Lowe’s traditional marketing and sales initiatives:
Through this new approach, we will deliver more than just supplies to the customer. We will deliver kitchen remodeling solutions. Lowe’s will provide free in-home consultations and will work with customers throughout the design, purchase, and installation processes. This is a big shift from our current product-driven approach in the kitchen space.
While kitchen remodeling solutions was a promising opportunity for Lowe’s, it also posed difficult marketing challenges for Simpson and his new business development team. In the past, Lowe’s had mostly relied upon traditional marketing media, such as television ads, flyers, and point-of-sale displays, to promote its offerings. With the move toward an end-to-end service- centric offering, however, Simpson believed that digital media should play an important role in educating customers about the Lowe’s solution and convincing them of its value. He also believed that digital media and traditional media worked in complementary ways, and that Lowe’s needed to create an integrated marketing communications plan that would combine traditional as well as emerging marketing communications channels.
Lowe’s needed to determine how to stay top-of-mind for prospective customers during the long incubation period that typically preceded a kitchen remodeling project. Simpson knew that Lowe’s would have to engage its
In early 2009 Lowe’s Companies, Inc., a leading home products retailer, launched an ambitious new project to gain customer mind share in the kitchen remodeling arena. The project, called the next-generation installed sales (NGIS) initiative, was a concerted effort by Lowe’s to expand its service offerings to become an end-to-end solution provider for customers’ kitchen remodeling projects.
Brad Simpson, a marketing manager at Lowe’s, explained that the NGIS would be a very different approach from Lowe’s traditional marketing and sales initiatives:
Through this new approach, we will deliver more than just supplies to the customer. We will deliver kitchen remodeling solutions. Lowe’s will provide free in-home consultations and will work with customers throughout the design, purchase, and installation processes. This is a big shift from our current product-driven approach in the kitchen space.
While kitchen remodeling solutions was a promising opportunity for Lowe’s, it also posed difficult marketing challenges for Simpson and his new business development team. In the past, Lowe’s had mostly relied upon traditional marketing media, such as television ads, flyers, and point-of-sale displays, to promote its offerings. With the move toward an end-to-end service- centric offering, however, Simpson believed that digital media should play an important role in educating customers about the Lowe’s solution and convincing them of its value. He also believed that digital media and traditional media worked in complementary ways, and that Lowe’s needed to create an integrated marketing communications plan that would combine traditional as well as emerging marketing communications channels.
Lowe’s needed to determine how to stay top-of-mind for prospective customers during the long incubation period that typically preceded a kitchen remodeling project. Simpson knew that Lowe’s would have to engage its