HGTV Sidesteps Mass Media for a Slate of Splashy Events

When many consumers think about HGTV, they might think only of their favorite programs like “House Hunters” and “Color Splash,” but not the brand’s paint products or line of furniture. To change that thinking, and in a bold statement about the effectiveness of mass media, HGTV is sidestepping some TV, print and outdoor ads in favor of a full calendar of event and experiential marketing programs this year as a way to reach consumers face to face to showcase its wide array of products beyond the popular shows people watch on TV.

“We have very much in the past been focused on traditional media, one to many. We’re really looking to get closer to the consumer and have them interact on a much more personal level with our talent,” Denise Conroy-Galley, HGTV’s senior vice president, marketing and creative services, said.

The venues chosen to run the program are large, grand and filled with people like the annual music, film and interactive conference and festival, South by Southwest (SXSW), held annually in Austin, TX, the largest comic book and popular arts convention around, Comic-Con 2012, to be held next month in San Diego, The Mall of America in Bloomington, MN, where 40 million people troop through each year and the Disney Parks.

The events held at these venues are large scale, splashy and attention getting filled with ways for people to interact with the brand and its home products.

In its upcoming event, HGTV is erecting a sizable structure called “The Lodge” at the CMA Music Festival taking place June 7 -10, in Nashville, TN. The Lodge, created by Pop2Life,operates in partnership with sister networks GAC, DIY Network and the Travel Channel, where four days of consumer activities and musical performances will be held.

On hand to sign autographs will be talent from HGTV and the DIY Network, as well as popular country music stars. Copies of the new “HGTV” magazine will be handed out and people can take a look at the new app, The Shelf, on a supplied iPad, where they can browse home related content. Photos can be taken and visitors can watch the “White Room Challenge,” which brings back previous “Design Star” contestants for a live contest to design a white box with a limited number of materials. With the Texas heat pressing in, a misting station and shaved ice will be available. Also on display will be the wide range of consumer products HGTV offers like Sherwin-Williams interior paint and painting supplies, flooring, lighting, outdoor plants and furniture designed by Bassett, that many consumers may not be aware of.

Fans unable to visit The Lodge will be able to participate in the festivities through a website, by following onTwitter at #TheLodge and on HGTV’s Facebook page, which will feature daily posts of behind-the-scenes content, a rolling Twitter feed, time-lapsed videos that chronicle each “White Room Challenge” and trivia questions about HGTV, DIY Network, GAC and Travel Channel.

The Travel Channel will be present with a tour bus offering ice-cream sandwiches to promote its newest original series “Adam Richman’s Best Sandwich in America,” on June 6 at 9 p.m.

One of the major goals of the events is to collect consumer data, and HGTV has chosen venues that match its core demographic, young, affluent consumers with high household incomes. It plans to mine that data, segment consumers and begin regular communications.

 “We want to find out who are the folks most likely to interact with the brand and figure out the greater piece of that puzzle to move people through our entire offering,” Conroy-Galley said. “We need to get a better understanding of this person on who attended this event and understand if they would they be more likely to be interested in paint or furniture or another of our products.”

Texting is one of the communication channels HGTV will deploy after a “wildly successful” watch-and-win promotion called “Mortgage Madness,” in March. A promotional code appeared on air between 8 pm and 10 pm on a given night. Viewers could text in the code for a change to win a weekly $50,000 prize for people to put toward their mortgage. AT the end of the month more than 4 million text entries had been received. The promotion was deemed so successful that an advertiser, Quicken Loans, asked to sponsor the next iteration, which will run in July, Conroy-Galley said.

Each event carries a $500,000 budget with the exception of “The Lodge,” at $250,000. The venues were chosen to be perhaps a bit out of the box, but still within full range of HGTV’s core consumer.

“We want to stay natural and holistic to who were are so we’ll get some good traction, but it’s a little bit unexpected and that I think is a great thing,” Conroy-Galley said.

HGTV’s calendar of events began the year in March at SXSW where it rented space for the entire event. It hired bands to perform every evening, and found an interesting way to interact with attendees with was “Art on the Side,” a display of empty picture frames painted on the side of the building where people could paint “whatever.”  At next year’s SXSW event, HGTV plans to hold that type of art exhibit in multiple places in downtown Austin.

Over the holidays, HGTV is partnering with the Mall of American where it will build a contemporary gingerbread house in the massive rotunda. Visitors will be able to attend seminars and autograph signings while browsing through displays of HGTV consumer home products.

“This is a really interactive way to get out there with consumers and show them all the different touch points we have as a brand,” she said.