HGTV is affirming its place in the lives of young homebodies with a new $6.5 million branding campaign.
The tagline for the campaign will change with several spots. The basic message is “Make Life (fill in the blank: vivid, happy, colorful, unexpected, etc.) — Start at Home.”
The strategic vision for the campaign was developed in-house. The television spots, created by Crossroads Television of New York, began running March 12. Supporting print and online advertisements and outdoor billboards were designed by Doner Advertising of Detroit.
The 90 million-home network is mature and can't grow further via distribution, said senior vice president of marketing and creative services Lori Asbury, so it's placing more resources against attracting younger viewers. That doesn't mean necessarily reaching out to the 25-year-old, MTV demographic, Asbury stressed — “we're not aggressively going after them” — but it does mean drawing in more 45-year-olds, for instance.
HGTV's image has been evolving from “how to, all the time” to a home-focused network that one executives hope will be more relevant, fun and entertaining. The network's “bread and butter” remains home renovation and design shows, but reality series Design Star “has become a huge initiative for us,” Asbury said. Bought & Sold, another reality show profiling real-estate agents, has also proved popular.
The network has strong primetime ratings, which grew 13% to a 0.9 household average in 2006, she said, but it has “struggled a bit” in daytime. As a result, HGTV made strategic changes: No more creating a show and just slotting in a host, she said. HGTV is now crafting shows around the hosts, and making them the face of the network in the spots.
The campaign functions on several levels, said Asbury: It's a call to action, it paints HGTV as a destination and it creates a unified message for use across all of its platforms.
The commercials feature such favorites as Candice Olsen (Divine Design With Candice Olsen) and Clive Pearse and Lisa LaPorta (Designed to Sell). New hosts include designer Vern Yip (Design Star), Carter Oosterhouse and Steve Watson (Don't Sweat It) and Eric Stromer (Over Your Head).
The first commercial featured David Bromstad, the first winner of Design Star. He'll star in his own series, Color Splash, debuting today (March 19).
