CASE STUDY: Aaron's 2019 Brand Strategy

For 3 consecutive years, Aaron’s, a national omni-channel retail leader in furniture, electronics, and appliances with 1500 corporate and franchise stores across 48 states, concentrated its advertising strategy on measurable ROI from promotional campaigns. Although these promotional periods yielded positive results and established a foundation for leveraging predictive data science in managing advertising investments, the multi-year trend indicated declines in brand awareness and 'intent to buy,' particularly among Millennials. This data highlighted a significant threat to market share and medium-term growth. As a response, the decision was made to introduce a branding message layer during promotional periods and to adjust the overall media spend to a balanced 50/50 mix of brand and promotional investments.

The company had just committed to a multi-year process of converting all stores to a highly successful new store experience and persona. Therefore, the new legacy store national brand campaign messaging would need to advance both the old and new models as part of an effective advertising strategy. It could not over-promise on the legacy store customer experience and risk disappointing new shoppers, nor could it undermine customer expectations for the converted stores, particularly as they aim to enhance brand awareness across all platforms in an omni-channel retail environment.

In focus groups and interviews, consumers discussed how a low credit score can unfairly label them as irresponsible individuals. They articulated that their low credit scores often result from circumstances beyond their control, rather than personal failures. These consumers believe that a company implementing a compassionate advertising strategy—one that recognizes a credit score is just one part of their story—demonstrates fairness and is truly worthy of brand awareness. Such an understanding is especially relevant in the context of omni-channel retail, where consumer stories are integral to building lasting relationships.

The big idea driving the advertising strategy for our dual creative messaging mission is that 'Good people with bad credit are still good people.' This emotionally driven creative structure, primarily focused on video and social marketing campaigns, aims to enhance brand awareness by leveraging real user-generated content on YouTube, while effectively utilizing an omni-channel retail approach.

Prior to production, a “rough” video was created for qual and quant testing, featuring the near-final copy and musical treatment. This advertising strategy tested in the top 3% of all ads for emotional engagement and memorability, resulting in an 18% increase in “intent to shop” and a 21% rise in “intent to buy,” which is expected to bring a 2%-3% gain in market share. Upon completion, within just the first 3 months, the :60 second version of the ad achieved over 20 million completed views on the “skippable” TrueView YouTube buy. The :60 second ad outperformed the :30 and :15 second versions by nearly 50%, enhancing brand awareness significantly. Additionally, multicultural engagement matched that of the general market, confirming research that projected universal appeal and providing substantial efficiency gains in Hispanic media reach, which is crucial for an effective omni-channel retail approach.