Never sitting still
In 1978, Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank saw an opportunity. They’d lost their jobs at a hardware store and were sitting in a coffee shop, dreaming up an idea for a new and better home improvement company. Theirs would have a wider variety of products and highly skilled associates who could help with any project, at any skill level. Shortly after, that dream would become The Home Depot.
The Home Depot has grown into the fifth largest ecommerce site in the world, offering millions of products and achieving $151 billion dollars in annual revenue in 2021. As vice president of integrated media, Melanie Babcock has led the way in embracing how the core values of The Home Depot fit into today’s digital economy.
“Customers come to The Home Depot to solve a problem,” says Babcock. “This behavior is the commonality across all of our customers, so we need to speak to them in ways that match the amount of help that they need.”
As ecommerce expanded, The Home Depot realized it needed to create a unified customer experience online and in stores. The goal was to help customers quickly find the right information and the right product, whether they’re browsing on the website or walking the aisles of their local store. And beyond helping customers find a specific drill bit or door handle, the home improvement retailer’s leadership team set out to redefine the overall customer experience. It envisioned delivering the right information and inspiration at every stage in a customer’s project.