HGTV Urban Oasis is an annual multi-platform content program that showcases the style and ease of city living, each year featuring a unique home in an up-and-coming locale. HGTV Urban Oasis 2021 featured a cozy cottage in the hip Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, Indiana. HGTV aims to inspire and entertain the audience with a look into this bustling midwest city and designer Brian Patrick Flynn’s quest to build the ideal city dwelling. And best of all, fans can enter for a chance to WIN the HGTV Urban Oasis in a sweepstakes running concurrently on HGTV.com and TLCme.com.
Emerging from a challenging period for the rental car and truck business due to Covid-19, Hertz partnered with HGTV to develop a unique integration program to weave Hertz rental cars and trucks into HGTV Urban Oasis 2021. The partnership aimed to drive awareness and consideration for Hertz and to present new and practical ways to use rental vehicles beyond the typical airport travel setting. And as the world began to open up again as vaccination rates climbed in mid-2021, this program would also keep the Hertz brand top of mind for consumers as more normal travel patterns resumed.
The Hertz integration approach for HGTV Urban Oasis 2021 was two-pronged: one set of components promoted the Hertz rental truck business for moving and other heavy hauling needs, while the other elements supported their rental car services.
During each HGTV Urban Oasis program “load-in day” is a pivotal moment in the process where the home build is complete and the designer finally gets to bring in all of the unique home furnishings they have sourced from around the city. The signature yellow Hertz truck was featured here pulling up to the home, driven by a member of Brian Patrick Flynn’s design team, filled with art and furniture sourced from local Indianapolis artists and small businesses. The excitement of load-in day was captured in the on-air special and an Insider’s Look digital social video that went behind the scenes with Flynn and his team.
To support the Hertz rental car business unit, they sponsored the popular Around the Area digital video series, where host J. Pickens explores the best of Indianapolis. An advertorial social video showed Pickens picking up a vehicle from a Hertz neighborhood rental center and exploring a trendy food hall in the Bottleworks district. It was important for Hertz to show this neighborhood rental location in the video to demonstrate that you don’t have to go to an airport to rent a car. The right size and type of vehicle for your adventure can be right around the corner with Hertz. In two other sponsored Around the Area videos Pickens careened through the treetops on a zipline adventure and sampled artisan chocolate at a local company’s tasting room. These digital videos aimed to appeal to Hertz’ target audience segment: upscale, travel-savvy female consumers who love to explore destinations off the beaten path.
Hertz also benefited from aligning with the strong framework of HGTV Urban Oasis 2021, a program in it’s 12th year on HGTV. They received an opt-in on the sweepstakes entry forms, providing fresh customer leads for their marketing database. HGTV provided Hertz with a collection of still photography from the home, which they could use to create co-branded marketing materials throughout the year. The program was also enhanced with on-air promos, high-impact digital ad units, targeted social placements, and a custom TVE video asset.
This year’s HGTV Urban Oasis was the most successful in the history of the program. The sweepstakes received over 75 million entries, on-air reach topped 2.5 million impressions, and multi-platform content views totalled over 350 million. HGTV Urban Oasis continues to reach Hertz’ target upscale audience, over-indexing on key indicators such as home ownership, $100k+ HHI, travel affinity, and more.
A panel study of Discovery and HGTV’s influencer community determined that the Hertz sponsorship was memorable and drove lifts in favorability and consideration. Exposure to Hertz’ HGTV Urban Oasis campaign resulted in 82% ad recall, 39% lift in Hertz brand favorability, and a 42% lift in consideration intent.
Across social platforms, the campaign delivered over 18.7 million impressions and 24k engagements. Consistently, these social videos delivered above HGTV’s benchmark performance across Facebook and Instagram. Viewers of the Around the Area and Insider’s Look videos were more likely to watch and engage with the posts than typical sponsored HGTV home giveaway videos.
Through the powerful sweepstakes platform, Hertz yielded over 100k new customer leads through an offer on their sweeps page opt-in checkbox. By partnering with HGTV for this content program, Hertz was able to capitalize on the proven success of the HGTV Urban Oasis Giveaway.
*Data sources: Adobe Analytics; Star Multitrak; Experian ConsumerviewSM 2020; October 2021 Urban Oasis survey of the Discovery, Inc. Influencer online consumer community; Facebook Ads Manager and Creative Studio
