Spotlight on the Whipp process: Rug&Home

Rug&Home is a five-state home furnishings empire boasting hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of rugs, luxury furniture items, accessories, art, and decor.
 
Its reputation for high-end merchandise at rock bottom prices paired perfectly with its respected clientele ranging from Billy Graham and Gladys Knight to the Biltmore Estate and Hollywood movie sets (George Clooney HIMSELF has enjoyed the luxury of a Rug&Home rug).
 
But above and beyond anything else, they were best known for an iconic high-pitched, backward-walking blonde in a series of low budget commercials that were as much loathed as they were loved by viewers armed with mute buttons from Tennessee to Georgia and all points in between.
 
To make matters worse, test after test revealed that audiences thought Rug&Home only sold rugs, even though every one of their stores featured thousands of square feet of furniture and accessories.
 
So when their sweet young bombshell turned baby mama, Rug&Home turned to us to create something fresh and new that would signal a change without losing the fun, while elevating the brand and showcasing their variety beyond just rugs.
 
Derek had just recently been introduced to a brother-sister team of filmmakers from Hendersonville (who later moved to Hollywood and have just wrapped working on the Betty White Show) and Chris started stalking them on Facebook. After a few “brainstorming” sessions at Limeleaf Chris and Derek came up with the perfect plan to capitalize on the young artists’ talents and sweep in a new era of commercial style for Rug&Home.
 

Challenge One: Turn down the volume without being boring

Challenge Two: Showcase the variety

Challenge Three: Elevate the brand and give it a personality

 
To contrast the chains previous vocal spokesgirl, the campaign featured a series of silent movies. Three styles of music were chosen to reflect three kinds of audiences (a happy and poppy charmer, a dramatic vaudeville jaunt, and a fashionista disco funk) and an animated tag was designed to highlight rugs along with the chain’s three main locations and online store. The short silent films followed the antics of the brothers and sister through vignettes that showcased the entire scope of all the stores had to offer by allowing them to build entire rooms from start to finish and playfully interact with merchandise in a variety of styles.
 
We launched the campaign during the Super Bowl to huge success. And the purely visual approach proved to be just as effective if the viewer happened to be muting or fast forwarding as it was in real time. Responses from customers even indicated that they were so intrigued by the scenes that they tended to stop, rewind, and watch the commercials again whenever they spotted them.