Lowe's Goes For 'Wall of Vinyl'

White Oak Display & Design, Palmyra, Pa., had worked with Lowe’s Home Improvement, Mooresville, N.C., indirectly for a number of years on behalf of flooring vendor clients. But when Lowe’s in 2015 wanted to fully reset its flooring aisle to promote vinyl flooring alongside wood and laminate, its staff came to White Oak directly.“[Lowe’s was] planning a clean sweep of the aisle,” says Rob Haake, executive vice president of White Oak. “They wanted a ‘wow’ factor, something that was going to change the look of the aisle.” The end result: a “wall of color” that’s visible at the front of the aisle, boosting category visibility and offering a wide variety of flooring solutions.White Oak’s market research showed that what would help focus shoppers would be a “wall of vinyl” in a vertical presentation, Haake says. “We decided to build a lot of flexibility to the rack. The entire unit is built off the premise of 24-inch increments – a 24-inch board, a 48-inch board, a 72-inch board. It gave them a look they didn’t have before, and they could use it in all their stores and change their planograms at will.” These relatively common increments also will help accommodate future updates, White Oak notes in its 2016 application to the Design of the Times Awards competition.Lowe’s also asked White Oak to handle the graphics of the 74-inch high, 48-inch wide display piece, 5,820 of which rolled out to more than 1,700 stores with an intended duration of eight months from the October 2015 rollout date. The aisle is set up based on price-point progression, with vendor marketing in each bay, and installation information on side panels, bay signage and belly beams intended to give shoppers the confidence that they could do the job themselves, White Oak writes. Take-home samples were also provided.“We not only designed and manufactured the racking, we did all the graphic design, printed everything, did all the packaging and then once everything was complete, we did all the distribution to 1,700 stores,” Haake says. “The only part we weren’t in charge of was the installation.”“[Lowe's] wanted a ‘wow’ factor, something that was going to change the look of the aisle.” – Rob Haake, White Oak executive vice presidentThe campaign did not extend beyond the in-store piece to anything that could be described as laying down a path-to-purchase, Haake says, adding that Lowe’s doesn’t always spotlight vinyl flooring. “Vinyl, for the longest time, would have been the [outcast compared] to real wood and laminate,” he says.Yet the in-store piece had a definite impact, Haake says. In addition to the good impression that the aisle made on the executive team at Lowe’s, some of the flooring vendors that share the SKUs in the aisle exceeded their sales for the year by the following April.In working directly with White Oak on the campaign, Lowe’s moved away from business as usual, Haake says. “My impression was that this was a huge endeavor for them, not only changing the look but also working directly with the display manufacturer,” he says. “Coming to us, trusting us and working [exclusively] with us was a really revolutionary way for them to think and do things.”

Lowe's Goes For 'Wall of Vinyl'

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