Aaron Baar, “True Value Positions Self as ‘Hardwarian Master’,” Marketing Daily, DATE.

In True Value’s most recent marketing campaign, print ads in Better Homes & Gardens, Sports Illustrated, Popular Mechanics, This Old House, and Outdoor Life, as well as commercials on the DIY Network, HGTV, ESPN2, CNN, and Fox, communicate the idea that its salespeople are knowledgeable enough to help anyone solve any home improvement problems they might have.

Along with the tagline, “Start right. Start here,” the advertisements display customers who bought the wrong products because they visited the “wrong” store first. Thankfully, they have retreated to True Value, though they wish they had started there in the first place.

The ads and commercials also promote sales associates as the “Masters of all things Hardwarian.” Despite the gender implication, they show female sales associates showing female customers that they can be DIYers too, assuming they get some knowledge from True Value associates.

In this economy, many customers become DIYers who want to save money by doing their own carpentry and repair projects. True Value welcomes these new customers by providing an excellent sales staff that is not selling products but rather solving their problems. For first-time DIYers, the repair task often seems daunting, so the service provided by the store is valuable to customers.

In addition to appealing to these new customers, True Value also wants to build its relationships with existing customers. The sales associates promise to help solve customers’ problems and indicate that it should not be a one-time-only interaction—customers come back because the problem is tougher than they originally realize or to take on additional projects.