NEW YORK—Mullican Flooring is embarking on its first foray into national TV advertising via a unique promotion with HGTV. In celebration of its silver anniversary, the company has signed on as the flooring sponsor for the network’s Urban Oasis Giveaway, a sweepstakes with a grand prize of a fully furnished, downtown Manhattan residence valued at $1.5 million. The campaign is estimated to reach 30 million to 40 million people through on-air and Internet exposure.
“This was our 25th anniversary year, and we wanted to make an impact,” said Neil Poland, president. “We wanted to put the Mullican brand out there and show everyone the type of product we have.”
This promotion makes sense for Mullican, Poland said, because it encompasses what he referred to as a 360 advertising approach: the combination of targeted TV advertising with the Internet. “We were able to do this in one package with HGTV, which is the perfect target market for remodeling. Plus, it offers a strong web presence.” HGTV.com is the most visited home and garden website (Nielsen Online June 2010) attracting an average of five million unique visitors per month, while the network reaches 100 million homes.
Layered on top of the national advertising will be a retail incentive program for dealers, according to Brian Greenwell, vice president of sales and marketing, which will begin mid-September. “This Mullican Stimulus Package is a great tie-in with the exposure our brand will receive on HGTV.”
Poland believes this will help Mullican flooring retailers across the country “who have been fighting it out these last few years and give them a promotion that ties in to this Urban Oasis Giveaway and hopefully stimulates incremental sales.”
Jack Thomasson, Urban Oasis house planner who has overseen the construction of 16 HGTV Dream Homes and Green Homes, chose walnut ebony brown from the Mullican Frontier Wirebrushed Collection for the floors throughout the 900-square-foot residence with sweeping vistas of the New York City skyline. “We felt the ebony brown was a warm finish for an environment that can sometimes be considered cold,” he said. “This floor felt rich and inviting. You need a floor that grounds the entire unit and provides a surface with which the resident will be happy for the life of the home.”
Aside from finding the right floor, Thomasson looks to partner with companies who have “great” reputations for quality products. “We are very particular about the sponsors we let into the projects we put so much behind. We want our projects to be built in a way that will be around forever, and for the people who live here, ultimately, to love their floors. Floors are not [always] something you replace very often.”
Sweepstakes specifics
Custom-designed by HGTV’s popular designer Vern Yip, viewers can enter daily to win the residence that sits on the 33rd floor of the recently opened W Hotel in New York’s trendy Tribeca neighborhood. The sweepstakes entry period runs Sept. 1-Oct. 20. Users can enter once per day via HGTV.com/urbanoasis as well as once per day on FrontDoor.com. HGTV executives estimate receiving at least 10 million to 15 million entries.
“I can think of no more exciting place than New York for our first HGTV Urban Oasis,” Thomasson said. “There is so much diversity, so much revitalization downtown. This is one of first new buildings to be built downtown in many years.”
New York was also attractive for Mullican, Poland said, because New York City has been one of Mullican’s top markets for the last 10 years.
To see more pictures of the residence, visit the Floor Covering News Facebook page.