It all boils down to this: homeowners have a lot on their minds. They have jobs, mortgages, spouses, kids, pets – the list goes on. And along with all that responsibility, they have to take care of their homes. That takes a lot of work.

In every single room of their house, homeowners have to make choices about paint and flooring, about furniture and light fixtures and appliances, about heating and cooling and windows, and so on and so forth. In each of those categories, numerous brands push and shove for consumer attention. It’s exhausting.

So, with all that in mind, consider this: in a homeowner’s position, would you really have the time or energy to research every brand in a category? And even if you did, would you want to?

If you answered “absolutely, totally not,” then congratulations: you’ve set aside your marketer’s mentality and discovered the homeowner’s.

With so many decisions to make, it’s no wonder homeowners get a little burned out. They’re under a lot of pressure to be experts in every aspect of home ownership, and they don’t want to fail. Plus, they have seemingly infinite options in each category, and none of those brands stand apart from any others.

Homeowners don’t have the time, energy, or desire to be experts in every category. But they also don’t want their lack of knowledge to lead them to the wrong choice. They just don’t trust themselves to make the best decisions.

In these moments where customers feel overwhelmed by decision making, we can offer some relief by presenting our brand as the expert. Showing a little empathy and lending a hand can pique a homeowner’s interest and make them feel comfortable with the brand.

Scotts Lawn Service: Avoiding Lawn Shame

Among the most classic of suburban American tropes is the lawn war. It’s on TV shows, neighborhood chat forums, and everywhere in between. But, when we started work with Scotts Lawn Service, we learned that not every house on the street was fighting that battle. Many homeowners, in fact, were not interested in being the best.

Still, they didn’t want to have the worst lawn on the block. One subject told us they were “not into paying three times the price just to be the best on the block.” They said they would prefer to be the owner of an average lawn.

These homeowners had no desire to become lawn-care experts. But they also didn’t want to be embarrassed. This was the ticket to our campaign.

In the “Opinions Next Door” campaign, we framed our client as a sympathetic problem-solver. We showed that Scotts specialists had the expertise that homeowners lacked. Where they struggled to keep up or didn’t want to learn, we could offer relief.

Through our work, we showed homeowners that it was okay to take their hands off the reins (or, more aptly, the mower). We gave them permission to trust Scotts Lawn Service to care for their lawn, and our approach worked – Scotts saw 10,000 new sign-ups with a 20% decrease in cost per acquisition.

Pet Supplies Plus: Choice Overload

At the onset of our work with Pet Supplies Plus, we petted a lot of dogs and cats. We visited pet owners’ homes to speak to them about their habits and beliefs, and, as we suspected, we learned that people love their pets.

But we also made an unexpected discovery. Many pet owners, we found, saw their pet’s status as a reflection on their own competence. When their pet was happy and well cared-for, they felt good about themselves, and vice versa. They wanted the best for their pets – whether that meant premium food, a surplus of toys, or tiny boots for tiny feet.

We also learned that people were overwhelmed by the volume of choices offered at so-called ‘big-box stores’. After all, what good was a wide variety if customers didn’t know which selections were worth choosing?

Pet Supplies Plus, in contrast, offered a narrower selection. Their customers appreciated that they didn’t have to browse aisles of options, and instead could rely on Pet Supplies Plus for a smaller variety of high-quality choices.

Our customers wanted to do right by their pets, but they didn’t always know how to do that because there were so many choices available to them at larger retail stores. So we made the “Minus the Hassle,” a campaign that positioned the Pet Supplies Plus brand as curators – smaller, faster, and smarter than their competitors.

We made their stores into category experts who did the hard work of selecting the best supplies, so that homeowners were sure to bring home something their pet would love.

American Standard: The World’s Most Boring $10k

Quick, what’s more exciting than shopping for a new HVAC unit? Answer: Everything. Literally everything.

When we sat down with homeowners to talk about their HVAC systems, we found they were very reluctant to go through the buying process, mostly because they just didn’t care. Many revealed they would rather wait until their existing unit died than perform proactive research.

HVAC was a category where people had little information, and that was fine by them. One homeowner told us that an installer could’ve lit a bale of hay on fire “and been like ‘here’s your furnace,’ and I’d have been like, ‘Ooh, is that new? Great! Energy efficient. We’re good to go!’”.

At the end of the day, homeowners weren’t excited about replacing their HVAC unit. They weren’t thrilled about spending $10,000 on a box that said nothing about them as people. It wasn’t flashy, and it wasn’t interesting. But even though they didn’t care much about the industry, they knew making the right choice was important.

We knew homeowners didn’t want to become HVAC experts, so we made American Standard the expert instead. We invited them to redirect their attention to “better problems” with the “Built to a Higher Standard” campaign. Essentially, we let them know that with American Standard, they could let go of their HVAC worries and focus on more interesting matters.

With each of these clients, we put ourselves in the homeowner’s shoes. We approached our audience with empathy and introduced our clients’ services as support. And in each case, our understanding made customers feel at ease.

It goes to show that there’s more to great advertising than delving into the details of what makes a brand great. Sometimes, the best thing a brand can do is relate to their audience.