Ace Hardware Fits Ads to Customer Context

As you almost certainly didn’t notice, I didn’t make a blog post yesterday. For no logical reason, this makes me feel guilty. So, since I happened to just see an interesting article, I’ll make two today.

A piece in this week’s BrandWeek describes a promotion by Ace Hardware that will allow people who are tracking a hurricane to find a nearby hardware store ("Look Like Rain? Ace Hardware Hopes So", BrandWeek, June 6, 2007).

This is a great example of using customer context in marketing—one of the core tenets of the Customer Experience Matrix. It’s a particularly powerful because it uses context twice: first, in identifying customers who are likely to be located in a hurricane-prone area, and second, because it gives them information about their local hardware store. If they added a mobile-enabled feature that included realtime driving directions, I’d have to give them some sort of award.