We had the best Saturday morning this past weekend. My father-in-law suggested we take our daughter, Maggie, to the Home Depot Kids Workshop in West Seattle and we had a blast.
Maggie is actually smiling in this photo!
The idea is that, for a few hours on a Saturday once a month, parents can take their children to their local Home Depot DIY store and make something cool using wood, real hammer and nails, glue and even get to paint their creation.
On Saturday they made a little desk calendar which used wooden blocks, and next month it’ll be a little racing car.
One of my new year resolutions is to really enjoy the small things in life, and this little outing was first on my appreciation list.
Not only did we have a fun morning, but it struck me what a genius marketing initiative this was to use creativity to get families into the store at no expense to them, have children start understanding the importance of woodwork, craft and DIY, and have them start seeing having a good time making things they can be proud of synonymous with the Home Depot brand. What was also apparent was the amount of families that then wandered off into the store to buy stuff, so they must make a few additional sales of the back of the program.
My only tiny grumble from a social point of view, was the lack of social activation. There was no hashtag on any of the collateral and I would have thought, given the rise in “sharenting”, that the store is missing a trick by not nudging proud parents to share their little ones’ creations on social channels.
Do you know of any initiatives like Home Depot’s that resonate like this? Let us know in the comments below.
