Bronze

Lowe’s, "Sims Social," OMD US (Local)

In 2012, Lowe’s introduced a revolutionary new tool for home owners. MyLowe’s, a web-based loyalty program, allows users to track all of their purchases in one place, organize what they’ve bought, and plan for future projects. Though MyLowe’s was successful in terms of the number of sign ups, consumers were not interacting with the tool. Many would sign up and then not return to the site. Research showed that Lowe’s shoppers are 33% more likely to have played a social game on their PC in the past month than the average adult. What better game to partner with than one that challenges users to build their dream home? Partnering with the popular game The Sims Social, Lowe’s introduced a game tab within MyLowe’s, it proved the perfect place to showcase MyLowe’s in a fun and innovative way, while educating consumers on the real world benefits. Bringing MyLowe’s to life in The Sims required a new approach to in-game integrations. In order to succeed, we needed to introduce changes to the game’s design that would benefit both the player and the brand. With a focus on ease of use and improving game play, we introduced a MyLowe’s tab in the game that provided users playing The Sims with the same benefits the real-world product provides to home owners. As new items were purchased in-game, they automatically populated in the MyLowe’s tab, the same way they would in the real-world MyLowe’s website. The results proved this strategy to be effective as Sims users seamlessly adopted MyLowe’s into their game play, which directly led to an increased awareness and interaction with the real MyLowe’s product to definitive success with over 22 million My Lowe’s items being purchased from the Sims Store and Lowe’s seeing significant lifts against brand metrics.