Home Timber & Hardware puts the hard back into hardware in latest spots via Cummins&Partners
Home Timber & Hardware (Home) has launched a new brand campaign via Cummins&Partners, that goes to the heart of what a hardware store should represent – quality product, service and advice.
Under the pledge to ‘Put The Hard Back Into Hardware’, the new creative adds a touch of Aussie larrikin humour to differentiate the national hardware brand against a market saturated by more rational advertising.
The new campaign sticks with the brand’s highly successful tagline ‘Go Where The Tradies Go’ and puts further reasoning behind why tradies shop at Home.
Says Kevin Lillie, Head of Marketing, Home Timber & Hardware: “It’s about owning what we’re good at. This campaign identifies Home as the only place 
that really understands quality hardware, service and advice. Trade is integral to our DNA and this new campaign talks to our strengths in servicing this market.
“It’s an engaging new campaign that says it as it is. It gives Home a real point of difference in the market and we’re confident it will resonate strongly with 
our core customers of tradies and home renovators.”
Home’s new brand creative came about following the appointment of Cummins&Partners as its new advertising agency in December 2014.
Says Ben Couzens, ECD, Cummins&Partners: “Somewhere along the line, hardware has turned soft. It’s hardware, not software. We think a true hardware store should resemble one, not an extension of the hardware aisle in the supermarket. ‘Putting The Hard Back In Hardware’ says that if you’re a man who likes to tackle the tough jobs in the right way, with the right gear, come to a place that’s giving hardware its balls back.”
The new campaign launches with four brand TV commercials and will be used across all brand touchpoints including catalogues, TV, radio, in-store POS and digital.
Head of Marketing – Kevin Lillie
Brand Manager – Home Timber & Hardware – Terri Cain
Brand Specialist – Home Timber & Hardware – Neena Tulaskar
Agency: Cummins&Partners
Executive Creative Directors: Ben Couzens & Jim Ingram
Creative Team: Frank Trobbiani, Chris Ellis, Michael Davey, Aaron Lipson
Chief Strategy Officer – Adam Ferrier
Group Account Director – Rod Mooseek
Account Manager – Dom Counahan
Agency Producer – Naomi Nienaber
Production Company: Otto Empire
Executive Producer/MD – Jo Defina
Executive Producer – Bill Doig
Line Producer – Elizabeth Rocka
Editor: Dave Whittaker
Risk Sound: Dylan Stephens
41 Comments
nice one – made me laugh
Nice work. Happy to watch these over the Bunnings ads any day.
pretty bloody funny, well done guys.
That’s the harder you. Good one. A lot better than AFL.
I lolled out loud
That’s the harder you. Good one.
Nice
Nup.
Old, tired, bland.
Good concept, executed well. Nicely done Cummins&Partners.
That’s really good. Nicely wriiten, cast and directed. Can’t ask for much more than that.
Comment of the year.
They’re pretty entertaining, well executed, good talent performances etc. don’t mind them.
The whole back end does seem a bit of a trifecta of messages though, with not only a new line “Put The Hard Back Into Hardware”, but the DNA of the two previous campaigns in there with “Go where the trades go” and also the dogs reappear after sitting in plasticine hiatus for a while.
If the animated dogs have come out of hiding again it begs the question of it only being a matter of time before they go back to that.
Well played sirs.
Cummins&Partners should change their name to Comments&Partners.
Well spotted Norm de Plume. A muesli of end lines and themes. One suspects this ‘compromise’ was a political solution –
CLIENT: ‘You can have ‘harder you’ if you keep the previous “Go where the tradies go’.
AGENCY: (meekly because it’s the first work for a new client, and knowing it’s the wrong thing to do but reluctant to make waves) ‘Oh….OK.
The campaign is ultimately confusing and suffers from what Psychologists call Cognitive Dissonance, which creates a mental jarring that results in NO message cutting though. For all its entertainment value, the ‘Harder you’ campaign should have been put on ice or abandoned at birth in favour of a brilliant new rendition of ‘Go where the tradies go’. It’s a good line but was always in need of a stronger, more creative execution.
You know it makes sense.
great creative and well executed. I reckon this will get people to think about renovating more – but it’s not going to make them go to Home Hardware. I think Bunnings will get the most benefit from this campaign
8 be 2s. Gold. Pisser. Top stuff.
Makes me want to be hard.
These are tops. Nice to see a real idea executed well.
Nice one C&P. Rather lol at this than watch a middle aged woman from Bunnings tell me Easter is the perfect time to mulch my garden.
@Old CD Guy: nice use of the phrase Cognitive Dissonance. Sounds like you also got Adam Ferrier’s book for Christmas.
Honestly, I fucking love them. And there’s quite a few in the agency have a good laugh over them. Nice one. Very jealous.
As a keen female renovator, I have to ask – why have only men been used in these spots? I love to get on the tools and do a bit of DYI – however I now know where I WON’T be shopping!
Is this a Clems Bupa ad?
Bupa – Meet the healthier you/Home – A harder you, and K-Mart – Ship my pants/Specsavers – Get naked.
Twice in one week – lock up your IP, Cummins is coming after your ideas!
hard? they look pretty soft to me
why would you want to make hardware, hard work?
….more an racv ad
Find a hardier you.
Comment all you want Cummins guys, these are pretty average. Not terrible like AFL and some other resent stuff, but a long way from great creative.
The ideas are old and very well trodden territory, blokes being blokey is strategically lazy, and they’re not really funny, just kinda ok.
Just pointing out that rampant self commenting doesn’t make them more than they are.
A suggestion, spend more time with the layout pad and less time commenting on your own stuff. Your work will be better for it.
jizztastic chris and az
They’re great. The line doesn’t work so much for me – put the hard back into hardware – because Bunnings etc position themselves as the easy place to go to reno stuff. Nobody wants to think reno-ing stuff is hard.
But great spots.
And to ‘What about the chicks’ – If I was the client I’d probably think fuck off and spend your money elsewhere. Seriously. When was this ever about racism or sexism. Idiot.
I’m a female DIY enthusiast too and also a proud feminist and see nothing wrong with these ads in terms of sexism…
Home hardware have never had their target market as women and have always been based around tradies so I really don’t see that being a valid argument on these.
I find them funny! And I would much prefer to see this over the dribbling staff of Bunnings (no offence Bunnings staff! You’re all great I’m sure but you just don’t make me want to shop there…eep)
I like the empowerment and drive the “harder” versions give to their softer selves. Who doesn’t need a little push from the most important and influential person in your life…you. It’s motivational in a non cheesy lame way and I like it!
Good ads!
Ps: totally love that the dogs are back. Such nostalgia! *thumbs up*
Yeah I find them quite funny – and I don’t work at C&P. Will go well against the Bunnings crap that’s on every ad-break.
Sure, it’s another ‘other you’ ad, but this time it’s a tougher you.
So fresh, in an ageing creative kind of way.
@Old CD Guy Yours are the ramblings of a madman. How is this campaign confusing? The message is simple and obvious – with Home Hardware’s help, you can DIY. You’d have to be too busy finding something wrong with the ads to miss it. Plus, the positioning line is brilliant because it can lead on to so many other executions for years to come. This campaign is merely setting it up. Please get back to the institution and take your meds.
Great stuff.
@backtoreality I also got a good laugh from these (and I don’t work for Cummins). It’s easy to overcook comedy. These are nicely restrained.
The strategy works for me, too. Hardware is inherently blokey. Or it should be.
The ‘reality check’ you speak of will be when real blokes vote with their feet.
if i were the client I’d report the builder of these to the HIA
Most people liked it. Well done. This thread is now closed.