It was cool technology that solved a common issue with vacuum cleaners. It was just a little hard to get consumer's attention.

 

When hair or fiber gets wrapped around the brushroll, the standard fix is to unplug the vacuum, remove the brushroll and use scissors to clip the hair off of the brushroll. That's a pain. Electrolux patented a solution where all a consumer had to do was press a button and a blade would cut the problematic tangle and the vac would suck the debris up into the dustcup – brilliant! But how do you explain that? The previous solution was like a filmstrip - show the tangled burshroll, show the press of a button, and show the clean brushroll. Text would accompany the 3 images to explain what was happening. This took a good deal of effort from the viewer. 

 

Lowe's Home Improvement wanted to feature this breakthrough technology on their "innovation endcap" but they demanded that the endcap be attention grabbing and impactful. A lot of discussion followed.

I had an idea. I left the conference room, and told everyone I thought I should have a solution comped up by the end of the day. I went to the photo studio with a brushroll, a pair of scissors, and a bag full of REAL HUMAN HAIR (gross!). After a bit of shooting and some time with Photoshop and Illustrator, I brought back the top image with the tagline "Why we invented the self-cleaning brushroll" 

​

The marketing team, the sales team, and the buyer all loved the image. The endcap was refined and launched. 

​

The campaign resulted in a sales lift of Electrolux vacuums of over 150%! it was such a successful display that Lowe's extended the placement of the endcap for an addional 3 months at not extra cost to Electrolux. Over 1 million dollars in vaccums were sold during that period. it was quite a win!