Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Argos is unveiling Heart of House – its first ever homeware and furniture own brand – with a multi-million pound campaign, kicking off with TV advertising on Monday August 25, and running across press, digital, social and PR.
The campaign celebrates the reality of family life and the ‘true’ use of products in the home. The TV ad features a series of ‘real life’ scenes, including a couple deciding where to put their sofa, a child making snow angels in a deep pile rug, a teenager using a pile of cushions as a laptop stand, and children playing hide and seek in a pair of curtains. Press and digital activities continue this theme, with photography of a chair being used as a dog basket, and a winged bed acting as an office space.
The TV ad will launch on Monday in primetime slots during ‘Coronation Street’ on ITV1, ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ on Channel 5 and the live semi-final of ‘Got To Dance’ on Sky One. For the rest of August, it will run across programmes on ITV, Channel 5, Sky and Channel 4 such as ‘Double Your House for Half the Money’ and ‘Cowboy Builders’.
Print ads will launch in women’s weeklies and newspaper supplements, followed by women’s monthlies and relevant home titles. Later in the year, there will be interactive tablet advertisements on key national sites. Social media activity includes the launch of a Heart of House branded Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Heart of House brand controller Jack Wallace said: “The integrated launch campaign for Heart of House represents Argos’ biggest investment in own brands so far. The campaign brings a new tone to the home market, which is based in the real world. Our homeware and furniture have been developed to withstand the knocks and bumps of everyday family life, and the campaign brings that to life through real family moments.”
Heart of House will offer a choice of 1,200 products across homeware, furniture and upholstery. The launch is part of Argos’ drive to increase its appeal amongst broader customer groups. Argos is committed to developing and growing its own brands to become a £1.5bn business, which represents a third of its total sales, by 2018.
Argos currently offers around 7,500 homeware products and 4,500 furniture products. Home and furniture accounts for around a fifth of total Argos sales. With a network of 734 stores, Argos is part of Home Retail Group.In the financial year to February 2014, Argos sales were £4.1 billion and it employed some 29,000 people across the business.
