Sharps brand campaign drove record appointments and double-digit growth.

The catalyst was research that turned how Sharps viewed the furniture market on its head. Here we share how we did it.

The learning: don’t be afraid to let your shoppers surprise you and make sure you act on it!

How Sharps unlocked shopper potential

Challenge

Sharps, the UK’s largest fitted bedroom furniture specialist, wanted to achieve long-term growth by increasing design appointments – attracting new customers without losing loyal fans. We had to find a way to increase business by influencing customers to reassess Sharps’ offering.

Defining moment

We know the market, our competitors, what sells, what doesn’t, but do we really know and understand what drives shoppers to act, here and now?

We always encourage our clients to assume nothing.

We had to ask.

Insight

A significant study, with both qualitative and quantitative data, was the starting point of Sharps brand campaign. We created a picture of the entire bedroom furniture market – what shoppers want and what drives them to buy.

The results came as a surprise, for both them and us.

In a nutshell it told us:

  • When shoppers enter the bedroom furniture buying process they are undecided on options
  • Mixed perception of what fitted/freestanding furniture is
  • Mixed perception of the quality – echoing archaic fitted-furniture era of 1980s

This meant that:

  • Product description had to reflect consumer language
  • Communication had to target a broad range of people at the start of their buying journey
  • We had to educate about the benefits of Sharps products over free-standing
  • We had to emphasise the high quality of Sharps products and service

Solution

The new Sharps brand campaign was devised to appeal to a broad audience at the start of their journey – introducing a wide range of possible furniture options.

Strapline ‘created with you’ was an evolution of ‘Sharps & you’, reflecting the partnership between Sharps and its customers in transforming a blank canvas into their dream bedroom – from inspiration and design to storage solutions and installation. Consumers know what they want to achieve, but require help and expertise to deliver it.

Strengthening the new strategy, the TV creative captures the effortless transformation of a contemporary and traditional bedroom. Wardrobes are emphasised in the makeover of an empty room to a dream bedroom, which takes place in front of the eyes of the shopper – a vision magically brought to life and created with Sharps.

A combination of filming techniques, such as CGI, real footage and stop-motion animation, were tapped into to bring the concept to life.

The message ran consistently across all retail marketing channels from home interest and national press to in-store and online, ensuring a truly integrated omni-channel approach and a reach to a broad audience.

TV concepts were tested among the target audience, so success was already on the cards.

Results

Nobody could have predicted how powerful shopper insight could be in affecting Sharps’ bottom line. Sharps brand campaign resulted in:

  • Double digit sales growth with the same media spend
  • Biggest daily design appointment figures ever achieved by the Sharps brand

To find out how insight could help your business Please get in touch.

Adam Tregaskis, Head of Retail, The Behaviours Agency