Viking - Building brand awareness

The challenge

Viking wanted to raise brand awareness whilst also promoting their latest rear roller lawn mower range. They wanted to convey the Viking lawn mower range as practical, intelligent and well-designed, whilst also reinforcing the image of Viking as a fresh-thinking and knowledgeable lawn mower manufacturer.

They also wanted to encourage UK gardeners to enjoy their gardens and interact with and use Viking mowers to redesign their lawns during the summer months, consequently boosting sales.

The idea

The solution was originally a single pitch idea for one advertorial. The concept was to create a nationwide competition to find a British gardener who could create the most inspiring image from their lawn using a Viking rear-roller mower.

Readers were encouraged to get creative with Lawn Art in their gardensThe concept was a roaring success with the client, and it rapidly grew into a cross-platform campaign in Gardeners’ World Magazine and on gardendersworld.com. In addition, a bespoke microsite for Viking was created, generating an interest in ‘Lawn Art’ both online and offline.

The execution

To develop interest in the Viking Lawn Art competition, a series of advertorial and display pages were placed in Gardeners’ World magazine, during the early summer months to create a buzz around the competition launch. They included stunning images of lawns created with the Viking rear-roller mower, and an instantly recognisable Lawn Art logo to signpost the concept.

Readers were encouraged to go out into their gardens and get creative with Lawn Art. They then sent in photographs of their lawn creations via the Viking microsite, for their chance to win a Viking MBM 545 VR roller mower and a weekend away at the Lakeside hotel in the Lake District. Runner-up prizes included 2 rear-roller mowers, 2 electric mowers and 10 Viking goody bags.

The microsite also promoted both the Viking 5 series model, ideal for creating the stripes required in the competition, the Viking 6 series, and both the Viking T5 & T6 lawn sit-on super mowers or ‘tractors’.

The results

60% of readers recalled seeing the Viking Lawn Art advertorial in Gardeners’ World magazine, and more than half thought the creative was original, proving that the idea was recognised as a new concept by readers.

In addition, 73% found the advertorial easy to understand and 54% thought it was interesting (Index 146), making readers more likely to try out Lawn Art for themselves!

The website was also a success, bringing in a total of 359 entries. The winning piece was a grass bed that was turned into a striking sunset. The first runner-up sent in a photo of petal shaped droplets under their tree and the second runner-up created a snazzy pink and green striped pattern from the blossom that had fallen in their garden. There really were some masterpieces!

• Total impressions delivered: 1.2m
• Total clicks recorded: 2649
• Click rate: 2.48

Testimonial

“The BBC Lifestyle team showed a good understanding of our brand values and product goals, developing and then delivering a highly creative, interactive campaign. The team and particularly our primary contact, Matthew Smith, were consistently professional, enthusiastic and most importantly, enjoyable to work with. The Lawn Art campaign was creative, cohesive, and delivered our goals.”
Sally-Ann James – Product Marketing Manager, STIHL GB