A New Look
at Digital
Marketing in
Retail

TAPS is a leading Canadian kitchen and bathroom retailer, stocking their showrooms with thousands of kitchen and bathroom fixtures from top brands from around the world.

TAPS is also part of Wolseley Canada —the largest wholesale distributor of plumbing, HVAC, waterworks and industrial products in Canada with over $6 billion in annual revenue.

The Goal: A Campaign in a COVID-19 Market and Beyond

In 2019, we embarked on the Reimagine Campaign for TAPS showrooms, which involved a print and digital strategy, phasing out their traditional bi-annual print ad. This campaign was a success and increased retail sales.

In 2020, we were challenged to come up with a similar campaign to drive showroom visits and sales… except, we were thrown an unusual curveball: COVID-19. We had to create a retail digital marketing strategy and creative content for a COVID-19 market.

The Approach: Recreating the Retail Experience

The best way to stand out in a competitive industry is by finding what makes you different, which is the approach we took with TAPS. The designers at TAPS stores are very dedicated to offering advice and beyond-the-sale service. With COVID-19, we knew that people would still want that connection, whether or not they were in store.

That’s what ignited the strategy of a seasonal lookbook.

We felt strongly about a lookbook concept. Shoppers would be spending more time at home and would want the advice on hand to “design the perfect space” before heading to a showroom. We created this connection in the lookbooks with advice and design tips from the TAPS experts.

The Strategy: A Lookbook for Print and Digital

The Lookbook Campaign was designed in a holistic way, with print and digital in mind so people could experience it in their hands or on devices. As our strategy and creative approach we:

  • Mailed out 500,000 lookbooks
  • Created an online lookbook experience
  • Created a microsite for the campaign
  • Created Google Ads and Facebook Ads to drive

The Result: Connections and Sales

As a result of the campaign, showroom awareness and overall sales increased. Additional successes include:

  • Kept CPC under $1.00 on Facebook and under $0.50 on Google, performing better than industry averages
  • Over 12 million impressions from targeted audience
  • Close to 100,000 microsite sessions and clicks

The continued success of this campaign has expanded into a redesigned 2021 version with more digital pieces.