Toom Baumarkt: THE GNOME PROTEST

Credits & Description:

Category: Retail and E-commerce, including Restaurants

Advertiser: TOOM BAUMARKT

Product/Service: TOOM GARDENING SERVICE

Agency: OGILVYACTION

Executive Creative Director: Martin Seele (Ogilvy Action)

Senior Art Director: Lee Manton (Ogilvy Action)

Client Service Director: Werner Hesse-Quack (Ogilvy Action)

Management Supervisor: Cordula Mehler (Ogilvy Action)

Senior Copywriter: Mike Dawe (Ogilvy Action)

Copywriter: Nadja Franke (Ogilvy Action)

Production: Congaz (Congaz Audio Visual Company)

Post-Production: Congaz (Congaz Audio Visual Company)

Head Of Project Management: Hanna Von Schultz (Ogilvy Action)

Submissions: Toma Soare (Ogilvy Action)

Media placement: Ambient (Street Team) - City Centres - 17.11.2011



Summary of the Campaign

Toom is a German DIY store with an extensive gardening department and garden planning service.



Unfortunately, people only know it as a hardware store, not as an outdoor specialist. The challenge was to increase awareness of, and drive consumers to, toom’s garden centre.



So, a storyline was created: Gardens across Germany are being neglected, so much so that gnomes have decided to march to vent their anger.



We placed protesting garden gnomes across Germany, contacting our target audience directly and in a relevant, eye-catching manner. Each gnome carried a placard containing a story detailing why they were demonstrating, with a call to action to help out by visiting toom’s garden centre.



One of the gnomes took to twitter and tweeted his experience throughout the day, while members of the public won prizes by taking pictures of the gnomes and uploading them to Facebook, creating an online buzz.



By using characters synonymous with gardens, the promotion had an instantly recognisable group of heroes that could be sympathised with, photographed and even stolen to take home as a garden ornament, allowing us to have permanent product placement in potential consumers’ gardens.



We managed to change people’s attitude and behaviour towards toom, transforming their perception of it from just a hardware store to a garden centre filled with experts and an abundance of products. The online and social media success spread the message globally, creating worldwide awareness and publicity.



The Situation

Toom is a German DIY store with an extensive gardening department and garden planning service.



Unfortunately, people only know it as a hardware store, not as an outdoor specialist.



The Goal

The task was to increase awareness of toom’s garden department while also activating people to purchase.



The target audience is very disparate, being anyone who has a garden. The current situation is that a lot of people recognise toom as a hardware store but very few know of its gardening department.



Research was undertaken to ascertain the optimal locations for the gnome protest. These were based upon: proximity to toom, urban versus suburban housing split, and concentration of foot-traffic.



The Strategy

The PR strategy was to get word out about toom’s gardening department. We were aiming to generate an online buzz around the protest, and hence, the store. We wanted people to interact with the gnomes, not only by seeing them and picking them up in the street, but photographing them, uploading them to social networks and starting online conversations about them.



Execution

Gardens across Germany are being neglected, so much so that gnomes have decided to march to vent their anger.



From initially creating the idea of a 'Gnome Protest', the gnomes were sourced and procured; the protest messages were created, as were the story on the back of the placard and call to action. We then took to the streets and staged the protest in various locations across Germany.



Our high street protests allowed us to contact our target audience directly, in a relevant, eye-catching manner. Each gnome carried a placard containing a story detailing why they were demonstrating, with a call to action to help out by visiting toom’s garden centre.



One of the gnomes took to twitter and tweeted his experience throughout the day, while members of the public won prizes by taking pictures of the gnomes and uploading them to Facebook, creating an online buzz.



Documented Results

The protest generated enormous word-of-mouth and invaluable consumer-generated publicity. The gnomes featured in 1,000s of uploads, comments and views on social networking sites, as well as appearing on blogs and websites all over the world.



We changed people’s attitudes towards toom, with everyone who engaged with the protest learning that it isn’t just a hardware store: it also has a very large gardening department full of gardening experts.



Even though we are only just entering spring, enquiries for garden planning services have increased 40%, with much more expected in the build-up to summer.