A Helping Hand

Overview

Working with Toolstation started off in 2013 as a brief to “create a YouTube ad” and from there has developed into many years of brand response TV advertising. The Toolstation team loved the online content so much – not only was it light-hearted but was gaining incredible traction with over 5m views – that they invested in ATL media to venture back onto TV with Happy Hour creative.

Several response campaigns followed, from the direct-to-camera “Dave” to developing the brand personality in “The Trade Pros” and two sets of sponsorship for Soccer AM (“The Gaffer” and “Trade Pros”).

We have worked with Happy Hour for a few years now and are impressed with the creativity, professionalism and work rate of the team.”

John Meaden, Marketing Director, Toolstation

Our creative team had so much fun coming up with ideas for Toolstation, that they said our creative presentations became the highlight of their week! We delivered humorous ideas – whilst not always managing to keep a straight face – to a receptive audience who were always intrigued to see what we had come up with. Building these relationships is one of the favourite parts of our jobs!

As Toolstation grew, so did the need to differentiate from competitors and create a brand positioning that both consumers and colleagues could get behind. Happy Hour undertook a brand planning project to do just that. The resulting creative strategy was verified through focus group research and sees the trusty “Helping Hand” support all sorts of tradesmen go about their daily work.

There have been five executions to date within the Helping Hand campaign, some more brand oriented and some more tactical and product focussed.

With our most recent campaign, the culmination of a brand repositioning project with Happy Hour, the team were able to bring alive the Toolstation brand creatively. The new campaign gives a great visual representation with the introduction of the Toolstation ‘helping hand’ as well as telling our customers about our key messages in a fun engaging way.”

John Meaden, Marketing Director, Toolstation

Toolstation set ambitious brand awareness targets and each year the campaign continues to deliver and exceed expectations on its KPIs. Now in its third year on TV, the majority of our target audience tradespeople know the Helping Hand and can recall the campaign.

Media is bought by The Specialist Works.

Blogs

• It’s ‘Back Of The Net’, for Happy Hour’s ‘Soccer AM’ idents, on air now.
• New Toolstation campaign goes live
• Happy Hour lend a Helping Hand on New Toolstation TV Advertising Campaign
• Happy Hour creates the latest Toolstation DRTV Campaign