Appliance retailer Noel Leeming were holding their  annual “Massive Sell-out Event”, a special 4-day sale event at Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds.  But given the prevalence of ‘shouty’ formulaic ads making “massive sale” claims for “one weekend only”, how could people be convinced that this event was actually worth going to?

A disconnect between people’s reactions to sales advertising and their actual behaviour was revealed in a focus group when a 2012 ‘sell-out’ attendee enthused about the deals they’d experienced.  From this, a strategy was born: stir up a fear of missing a bargain by creating a communication platform that uses real stories direct from event customers to convince the masses to attend.

Removing layers was critical in ensuring speed of delivery and delivering to budget so  content production and distribution were consolidated into a single unit with TVNZ, The Radio Bureau and APN Media creating a uniquely collaborative partnership. Effectively, they created a “production hub” live at the event, to capture stories and turn these into content that could work across each other’s media, including press, radio, digital and TV, as well as Noel’s owned channels.

This uniquely collaborative approach to telling the “people’s stories” to showcase the real bargains on offer at Noel Leeming’s Massive Sell-out Event delivered record sales results and has been heralded as their most effective campaign ever.