Dive Brief:
- Home Depot on Monday (Nov. 10) launched a holiday campaign that promotes its live Christmas tree lots by showcasing real tree farmers and their farms for the first time, per details shared with Marketing Dive.
- A new 30-second spot, “The Right Tree,” tells the story of a live tree’s journey from a farm to a Home Depot lot and, finally, to a family’s home. Accompanying social media content features tree farm partner Sexton Farms along with lot associates.
- Developed with agency BBDO, the campaign is airing across digital video, linear TV and connected TV (CTV). Home Depot is taking a more emotionally led approach to holiday marketing as consumers contend with financial pressure.
Dive Insight:
Home Depot is betting on tradition to stand out this holiday season. For the first time, the home improvement retailer is featuring the real farmers it partners with in its creative to tell a story about helping about families find the right Christmas tree.
A more emotional approach to communicating value could be critical to capturing loyalty this year, with shoppers expecting to spend 10% less versus 2024 around the holidays as they contend with macroeconomic pressures, according to Deloitte. Consumers this season plan to cut back on seasonal extras to preserve holiday traditions.
Key to Home Depot’s effort is “The Right Tree,” a 30-second spot that begins as a family member bundles up a young boy in preparation for a Christmas tree search. The ad then shows a tree’s journey from the farm to Home Depot, later featuring the young boy again as he chooses the tree as his perfect fit. “The Right Tree,” also running in a 15-second cutdown, was handled by BBDO alongside production company Bunker and director Warren Fischer.
A series of social media videos accompanying the campaign spotlight Home Depot’s tree lot associates along with tree farm partners from Sexton Farms, who dig deeper into the history of the family run business. Home Depot runs thousands of live tree lots in its parking lots across the country.
Other brands this season are deploying emotionally led campaigns in the hopes of winning over fatigued consumers. Earlier this week, Gap launched an extension of its “Give Your Gift” campaign with a 90-second spot set to a cover of Miley Cyrus song “The Climb” in an effort to promote hope and unity. Lexus set its latest “December to Remember” commercial to Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide” to showcase family and the passage of time.
Beyond its brand campaigns, Home Depot has continued to beef up the capabilities of its retail media network, Orange Apron Media, including through the addition of a self-service offering for advertisers. Home Depot reported sales of $45.3 billion in Q2, a 4.9% year-over-year increase, according to an earnings report.
