Background

Australia’s retail landscape is challenging. Retail sales have declined 2% every year for the last 5 years. And Department Stores are faring worse, with sales declining 5% YOY. Myer, Australia’s largest Department Store, faced its most significant test in Nov 2018 as it entered the all-important Christmas period. But instead of following the well-trodden path of big emotive Christmas TV, Myer bucked the trend. Myer didn’t talk about the magic of Christmas, it sold it (for the bargain price of $19.95).

Describe the creative idea

We wanted to make Myer the destination of choice for families during Christmas, so we gave them a new reason to visit, by creating an exclusive must-have product – the Naughty or Nice Bauble. The custom designed smart bauble helped children (and their parents) see where they were on Santa’s naughty or nice list, glowing green for good and red for not so good. Parents downloaded a partner app and secretly controlled the bauble (or multiple baubles) from their smartphone via Bluetooth Connection. Myer’s Naughty or Nice Bauble provided a secret weapon for parents and a new reason to believe for children.

Describe the strategy

The connected bauble formed the centerpiece of Myer’s Christmas effort. The bauble and its companion mobile app were promoted via an integrated campaign and across Myer’s owned channels and in-store. Our target audience was middle-Australian families. Myer is an Australian heartland brand but has lost its connection with this audience in recent years. By playing on a Christmas family tradition (Santa’s naughty or nice list) the baubles were designed to enable Christmas family ‘magic’ but with a modern, innovative twist. Live data from 20,000 baubles in homes around Australia allowed us to showcase who was being good and who was being bad (nationally and locally). Data from the baubles helped drive campaign longevity, cultural relevance and talkability. We profiled live results on digital outdoor, social channels and used the data as our lead PR hook.

Describe the execution

The baubles were released in all Myer stores nationwide and online on the 11th November 2018. In-store, the baubles were available in Myer’s ‘Giftorium’. A Christmas gifting pop-up destination in all Myer stores. The baubles were the key attract mechanism, designed to pull customers in-store to then facilitate additional Christmas sales opportunities. Bespoke POS displays were created for the baubles and as previously stated the baubles formed the centerpiece of Myer’s Christmas communications campaign (TV, outdoor, social, digital, catalogues and print). 20,000 were produced at a landed unit cost of $12.50 (including packaging). They retailed for $19.95.

List the results

20,000 baubles, produced and sold exclusively at Myer stores across Australia and online, sold out in just 11 days. Baubles appeared on Ebay for triple their RRP shortly after. The baubles returned a 35% profit margin, but more significant was their impact on the wider business. Shoppers who bought baubles re-visited Myer 4x more often and spent over 2x as much in-store than non-bauble purchasers at Christmas. And, for the first time in 10 years, total Christmas sales at Myer increased 1.6%.