1990: ‘Warehouse Sale’ commercial shows the power of “less is more”
To celebrate the Ad Club of New York's 120th anniversary, The Drum is inviting readers to share their favorite marketing moments from the past 120 years.
Today’s marketing moment was chosen by Tom Ungar, president and creative director at The Ungar Group. Below, find out why the 'Warehouse Sale' commercial for The Freeman Outlet Mall is his favorite marketing moment.
I can still remember when the idea for “Warehouse Sale” came to me. Minutes after leaving the client meeting in Beloit, Wisconsin, I was thinking about the standard commercials for outlet malls that featured wall to wall price supers, the announcer not being able to mention the brand names because the prices were so incredibly low, and shots of store fronts with customers rushing in to snap up the purported bargains.
To emphasize that the prices were truly low for the “Warehouse Sale” commercial, we went to a school supply store, and bought poster boards on which we hand wrote the entire copy for the commercial. We filmed in black and white, had no music track, sound effects, or voice-over, to emphasize that due to the low sale prices, there was no money left in the budget to produce a normal commercial. The television audience would become the default announcer while they read the copy on the screen. The absence of these elements turned “Warehouse Sale” into a pioneer in interactive advertising.
During the presentation, the client wondered about what would happen if people were in another room, and there was suddenly no sound coming from the television? I said, that they would check out what happened, and see the commercial.
Following the campaign’s airing, sales results showed that sales increases at stores in the mall were up, and that they ranged between 34% and 257% during the same time period over the previous year.
The campaign for the Freeman Outlet Mall was filmed in 1990 with a production budget of $14,000. “Warehouse Sale” was the first totally silent television commercial. It won a slew of awards including an Effie, and shared “Best of Show” at the International Film Festival of Chicago with a commercial titled “Island” for British Airways, which had a somewhat more forgiving production budget of $3,500,000. Then again, there are times when a big idea does not need a big production.
See the full 120 Marketing Moments in the dedicated online section and find out how to purchase the exclusive book.