PRODUCT LAUNCH
	Company: Electrolux Home Products España S.A. Event: Electrolux: Global Design TV Objective: Attract retail buyers to a product launch during the appliance market’s busiest selling season. Strategy: Eschew the typical product-launch road show in favor of something with can’t-miss-it appeal. Tactics: Create a fictional TV variety show that conveys product information in an entertaining manner. Results: Nearly 90 percent of invited retailer buyers attended, and 93 percent of attendees picked up the new product line. Creative Agency: Global Events ID Corp. S.L., www.global-events.com Production Agency: Global Events ID Corp. S.L., www.global-events.com; Team Tools, www.teamtools.es Budget: $667,800

ow does a home appliances company get its top retail buyers to drop everything during the busiest selling season of the year, take two days away from their stores, and travel across the country to listen to a sales pitch on its new product line? It doesn’t, right? Well, Electrolux Home Products España S.A. did. But it took a brilliant event-marketing sleight of hand to make it all happen.

The event magic was born out of near panic. In the winter of 2006, Electrolux made the bleak realization that, for internal reasons, it would have to launch its new Global Design line (sold in the United States as “Premium Kitchen Appliances from Europe”) in February, which happened to be the very height of the home appliance sales season in Spain.

The company and its events partner, Madrid-based Global Events ID Corp. S.L., knew that their typical approach to a product launch — a touring product exhibition for retailers — would probably not be appealing enough to entice store managers to take a break from the busy retail selling floor. But getting the products in front of store managers and convincing them to add the line to their inventory was critical. “The home-appliance market is a tremendously competitive field in which consumers rely vastly on the store expert’s advice,” explains Ana Grandia, president of Global Events.

That knowledge was particularly important for the premium-priced Global Design appliances, which Electrolux had developed in response to a study of consumer-usage habits. The study pointed out that most consumers barely use the most advanced features of their appliances. It also noted that some home appliances sacrifice design for user comfort or, conversely, functionality for style. With Global Design, Electrolux believed it offered the best of design and functionality without compromising either. Now it just had to prove it to the retail managers.

Still, despite Electrolux’s prominent position as the No. 1 or 2 appliance maker in virtually every category in Europe, getting the managers to take notice of the Global Design rollout would not be easy. As Grandia notes, this audience is not impressed by flashy presentations. Simply getting them to attend a launch event — not to mention one taking place in February — would be a challenge.

Electrolux needed something out of the ordinary that promised an experience no invitee would want to miss. Yet to convey the technical details so important to the Global Design line’s success, the launch also had to include all of the elements of a standard product launch: product demonstrations, feature-to-feature comparisons with other brands, and executive presentations.

TUNING IN

The Global Events planners brainstormed formats, themes, and elements that would deliver this combination of entertainment and information, and do it in a way that would appeal to even the most jaded retail buyer. As it turns out, they didn’t have to look farther than their own living rooms.

In Spain, as in much of Europe, sitcoms and variety shows dominate pop culture, and the hosts and actors who star in them are among those nations’ A-list celebrities. Each week, millions tune in to programs such as the karaoke-like music game show “Al Pie de la Letra,” and sitcoms such as “Escenas de Matrimonio.” Spaniards are beyond engaged with these programs — que están obsesionados. Consider that, on any given airing, fully 26 percent of the entire TV-watching audience — a number equal to 10 percent of Spain’s population — is watching “Escenas de Matrimonio.” That’s about equal to the percentage of American households tuning in to top-rated “American Idol.”

Global Events decided to tap that passion to entice Electrolux’s target audience to the Global Design launch. The team proposed staging a mock TV variety show centered solely on Electrolux’s Global Design appliances. The show would be called “Thinking of You,” the brand’s slogan, and would star some of Spain’s best-loved TV personalities.

With this approach, Electrolux and Global Events were applying author and MIT Branding Cultures Lab member Grant McCracken’s theory of celebrity endorsement. In his 1989 Journal of Consumer Research study, “Who is the Celebrity Endorser? Cultural Foundations of the Endorsement Process,” McCracken moves the endorsement approach beyond “credibility” and “attractiveness” models. Instead, he says, endorsements work through “meaning transfer,” in which consumers transfer their overall impressions of what a celebrity represents to the brand the celebrity is endorsing. So rather than turn to spokespersons based on good looks alone, Electrolux turned to TV personalities who would bring familiar qualities — based on their television personas — to its Global Design line.

Live from Madrid

In early 2007, word of the new TV “program” reached some 450 executives and sales managers from Spain’s top home-appliance department and retail stores. Each buyer received an invitation from Electrolux España in the form of a DVD signed by Concha Garcia-Campoy, one of the country’s most respected journalists and television hosts. When played, the glamorous Garcia-Campoy appeared, inviting the viewer to join her in Madrid for the taping of the new “Thinking of You” television show.

The invitation, with all expenses for accommodations and transportation paid by Electrolux, was too good to resist. Nearly 90 percent of the recipients from across Spain eagerly accepted.

When the appliance-store managers arrived at the carefully appointed “studio” inside the Madrid Sports Palladium, they were escorted onto an elaborately constructed television stage set, complete with the show director, camera people, and set technicians bustling about, seemingly in preparation for a live broadcast. Then to gasps of surprise and delight, the legendary Garcia-Campoy walked onto the stage, announcing that she would personally host the two-hour program, during which attendees would enjoy a lively variety show featuring four of Spain’s most famous television stars introducing and demonstrating Electrolux’s new Global Design line.

Aside from the celebrity flair, the detailed stage sets and props added to the experience as well. Despite the realistic presence of the production crew, popular actors, cameras, and TV-ready lighting that added an air of authenticity to the staged environment, the television production was done solely for the invited guests. It would not air to the general public in Spain, but be “broadcast” on two huge screens suspended above the stage for viewing by the in-studio audience, who were by now thoroughly enjoying this exclusive treat.

Skits and chat

After Garcia-Campoy’s welcome, the show began. As she had done so many times on Spanish TV, Garcia-Campoy led the show. But this time she wasn’t interviewing another celebrity or political figure. Instead, she invited the Electrolux CEO and three department managers onto the stage and engaged them in a conversational interview about the new Global Design line of kitchen appliances.

It was a dramatic departure from the usual executive PowerPoint presentations given by less-than-stellar speakers from behind a podium. Here, Electrolux executives chatted about the Global Design line’s strategy, position, and features with the charming Garcia-Campoy while video clips, produced exclusively for the event, illustrated key points.

As spontaneous and relaxed as the conversations sounded, nothing was left to chance. Global Events carefully scripted the interviews to follow a logical order with questions that seemed to emerge naturally from Garcia-Campoy’s curiosity. In reality, the Electrolux executives had rehearsed their answers, and even their jokes, repeatedly in the weeks leading up to the event until they sounded natural and impromptu.

Lighthearted dramatizations of the appliances in use punctuated the talk-show segments. For purposes of comparison and contrast, the production team constructed and equipped two complete kitchen sets with the same types of appliances: a built-in oven, washing machine, freezer and refrigerator combo, dishwasher, microwave oven, and stove.

But one of the kitchens was equipped with Global Design appliances, while the other came equipped with malfunctioning, outdated ones.

The audience soon learned that the kitchen with old, poorly functioning appliances belonged to a careless, inattentive couple. The other kitchen, appointed with pristine Electrolux appliances, was that of a savvy, thoughtful pair. The two kitchen sets remained dark during the talk-show portion of the program and were spotlit when each skit began.

As the actors entered the sets for their first skits, the audience instantly recognized them from their roles on Spanish sitcoms. The pair portraying the “careless couple” acted out a hilarious series of problems with their outdated home appliances. By contrast, the “perfect” couple glided effortlessly through kitchen tasks, thanks to their immaculately sleek and efficient Global Design appliances.

In another carefully scripted approach, each skit tied directly to a key point just made by one of the Electrolux executives. “A moment in a day in the life of these couples — breakfast, lunch, afternoon washing, or dinner — was played out after each executive interview, so the comments the Electrolux executives had just made were seen in a clearer and more explanatory way,” Grandia says.

Just like the scripted interviews, all of the skits were written by the Global Events creative team. “By pure chance, two members of our department came from television backgrounds,” Grandia acknowledges. “Before joining Global Events, one had worked as a journalist for variety shows and as a scriptwriter for quiz shows, and the other as a scriptwriter for children’s programs and actual sitcoms.” Even so, writing the scripts was no simple feet. “This was really hard work that we hadn’t truly realized when planning the event,” she says. But the effort that went into the sitcom sketches paid off handsomely as the audience reveled in seeing some of their favorite stars demonstrate the advantages of the new Electrolux products.

Wrap Party

At the end of the Electrolux “Thinking of You” variety show, Garcia-Campoy signed off, and two enormous doors, hidden in the back wall of the stage set, opened to reveal a buffet dinner and an exhibition of Global Design products with special advisors on hand to answer attendees’ questions. Garcia-Campoy and the four actors joined the home-appliance store managers for mingling, food, and drink: a celebrity moment that attendees would long remember.

The attendee response was enthusiastic, far exceeding Electrolux management’s most optimistic expectations, Grandia says. Of the 450 targeted retail appliance buyers, 89 percent came to the variety show — a stellar result in itself, made all the more gratifying due to the tricky, peak-season event timing. And in the three months following the fictional TV extravaganza, a stunning 93 percent of launch attendees opted to include the Global Design line in their catalogs. José Ramón Valle, communication manager of Electrolux España, called the TV variety show “the most-loved promotional event the company has organized.”

Corporate EVENT Awards judges were also wowed by the Electrolux event’s audience-appropriate strategy and, more important, its results. “That’s an almost unbelievable behavioral response,” said one judge. Added another, “This is really smart marketing. Spanish audiences live for variety shows, but they never get to meet these people. Using those celebrities and capitalizing on the excitement of the whole live-TV experience was brilliant. And for the cost, Electrolux saw tremendous results.”

So despite the fact that “Thinking of You” might never be eligible for Nielsen Ratings stardom, for Electrolux’s target audience, it was still must-see TV. e