2011 Ugly Bathroom Contest

This year we initiated the Ugly Bathroom Contest, which will run thirteen weeks, beginning on February 6.

Again, I designed a series of ads, posters and department signs and tent cards, to grab customer attention and let them know about the Ugly Bathroom Contest. The idea was to design distinctive-looking ads that playfully suggest your out-of-date bathroom would be a prime candidate for a bathroom makeover.

What's So Funny About Peace, Love & Flowered Wallpaper?

By naming decades or eras, the out-datedness was implied. The target audience (women) were more likely to want to "update" their bathroom, even though all the fixtures may still be in proper working order. 

The ads were introduced in two waves. The first wave appealed to women, usually the prime mover when deciding to update a kitchen or bathroom. The second wave, introduced five weeks into the contest, was more broadly posed at men, focusing on ugly and/or broken fixtures. To urge the customer to enter the contest, I used some not-so-subtle word balloons to illustrate that your bathroom's dilapidated condition is really a cry for help.

And, of course, you can't have humorous ads for an Ugly Bathroom Contest without indulging in a little "bathroom humor."

Again, the signs and ads were designed to mesh with a cable TV/YouTube campaign that could put a voice to the word balloons, using voices that would embellish dripping faucets, slow drains, toilet bowls, etc. Unfortunately, the decision was made against carrying the campaign across several media.

The 2010 Ugly Kitchen Contest

We introduced the Ugly Kitchen Contest in September of 2010, which ran for 12 weeks beginning on Labor Day, September 6, and running through November 28.

To enter the contest, customers were asked to submit a photo of their current kitchen. I wanted to reinforce the photograph idea in the signage, so I included a variety of "ugly kitchens" made to look like old-fashioned snapshots. And, in thinking about the contest, where we are asking customers to show us the ugliest part of their home. In a way, to be proud of something you shouldn't be proud of.  

I figured humor was the best way to approach this, in the vein of the "Your mama" jokes, or the "You know you're a Redneck" jokes.

The idea of this method was that the same theme could be applied to a series of radio ads, reiterating the message from the signs, with a Rodney Dangerfield-like voice. This would make the radio ads interesting and reinforce the visual of the signs in the store. The Ugly Kitchen Contest radio commercials were not used, but a :05 tag was added to our standard "boilerplate" advertising spots.

In our post-contest tracking, a very small percentage (less than 2%) gave radio as the medium through which they heard about The Ugly Kitchen Contest.