Big Toy Month recognised with marketing effectiveness award

When The Warehouse opened it paved the way for accessible toys in New Zealand. Kiwi parents could now afford to treat their kids to world-class, name-brand toys.

But with disruption comes emulation. In the following years, competition in the cheap toy market proliferated. Soon the July Toy Sale took hold and became a national pastime. Such was our success that our competitors soon took advantage, running their own toy sales each July. As has happened with other events like Black Friday since we’d trained the market.

To add to the pressure we knew that winning in July means winning at Christmas - the retail holy grail. Alarmingly, the retail market declined dramatically during Q1 2018. Consumers were spending less across the board and as the biggest fish in the pond, The Warehouse had the most to lose.

If that wasn’t enough, in 2018 we launched a new pricing strategy called Everyday Low Price EDLP. EDLP did away with hi/lo discounting: a huge move for the home of bargains. Although EDLP set The Warehouse up for long term margin growth, it meant we couldn’t pull the price lever - even in July when consumers expected it.

The resulting Big Toy Month campaign cut through the clutter like a knife delivering a more than 20% increase in recall despite an equivalent decrease in advertising spend. It delivered a double increase in profit and won back market share versus a declining trend in previous years.

The comms council recognised the inaugural Big Toy Month with an Effie’s marketing effectiveness award.