Overview:
Malibu has maintained a 70%+ market share in the low voltage outdoor lighting market and 50%+ share in the solar outdoor lighting market for many years with little advertising support. They have been a key supplier to the DIY chain stores, building the category and growing with them. Competition has increased in recent years with new entrants and store brand products beginning to erode share and shelf space at major retail locations. Malibu determined it was time to initiate a brand support campaign to strengthen their position with retailers and generate interaction with end users.

LoSasso Advertising won the Malibu account with strong creative and a truly differentiated media strategy that dramatically increased the impact of the spend and delivered measurable results.

Objectives:
Create buzz to increase consumer awareness and generate measurable consumer interaction with the Malibu brand, and show retail partners such as Home Depot that Malibu is actively supporting the category. Driving web traffic was also an important objective as the Malibu on-line store would be opening soon.

Strategy:
Leverage an integrated direct response media strategy to maximize the impact of the media dollars; generate excitement with a national sweepstakes promotion. This strategy provides solid measurement of consumer engagement, accelerated traffic to the Malibu website and will facilitate ongoing communication with interested consumers.

Tactics:
An integrated media buy promoted the Malibu Outdoor Living Sweepstakes online and in premium national consumer gardening and handyman publications. The opt-in allowed Malibu to build a database of consumers to whom we could remarket and maintain contact. Much of the media was purchased at DR remnant rates securing a discount of more than 80% across the buy.



Results:
80% discount on media buy
Secured 1.2 million sweepstakes entries
80,000 new subscriptions to LightNotes newsletter
Generated important PR coverage in consumer and trade media
Strong channel partner response

Client Comment:
"Our team met with multiple agencies and felt most comfortable with LoSasso. We chose them because of their creativity and a unique strategy for direct response buying – it was important to us to have metrics associated with our spend and it was clear they felt the same. We also believed we would get better service with them than we would with a larger agency. They have worked very well with our team as well as with our PR group. We’re very happy with their performance."
- Natalie Scholberg, Director of Communications, Intermatic Corporation