HORNBACH Takes a Big Ole Whiff of Spring in This Sweaty Ad

Spring in the garden – we are all familiar with the smell. It smells of grass, flowers, fresh soil – in short, it smells of new beginnings and the desire to get active in the great outdoors. It may sound impossible to try to bring this special smell to life, but this new HORNBACH campaign aims to do precisely this, traditionally with a blithe portion of madness added for good measure. The smell of spring – captured in the sweaty clothes of some typical HORNBACH characters. That is the stuff this new HORNBACH campaign is made of. 

As a central element of the campaign, the new ad tells this story with a generous helping of fun and absurdity. It was created by Heimat and directed by Anorak’s Sam Hibbard. 

Two dubious scientists, accompanied by a no less dubious container, go around collecting the clothes from hard- working garden lovers. Clearly, the clothes now smell of spring and it becomes clear what happens to them once the ad switches to a nondescript, hostile city, where a young woman retrieves one of the vacuum-packed shirts from a vending machine and ecstatically sniffs it. ‘That’s the smell of spring’ is thus the central message of the campaign. 

"It goes without saying that the project remains central to HORNBACH communication, along with the passion and creativity of our customers. We never want to lose this aspect," says Thomas Schnaitmann, head of marketing in Germany and marketing communication worldwide at HORNBACH. 

However – as is typical of HORNBACH communication – this campaign also has additional albeit secondary levels of interpretation. "You can also view the ad as a discourse on the increasing urbanisation and decreasing quality of life in cities. When you look at the protagonists, you may very well also see a case being made for the mature man," adds Guido Heffels, HEIMAT’s chief creative officer.