A total home makeover on TV and online media increased awareness for skylight producer

In the successful Belgian TV programme “Blind Gekocht”, young couples entrust their total savings and a mortgage loan to a team of experts. Their goal? To buy and renovate the home of their dreams.  

Although the participants’ wishlist and budget constraints are taken into consideration, the TV crew and its group of renovation experts make all of the decisions. The couples who appear on the programme don’t get to see their new homes until they ‘blindly’ take possession of the keys as part of the big reveal.

For the participants, “Blind Gekocht” offers the opportunity to start a new life in a dream home renovated by experts and tailored to the new owners’ desires. But it’s not just the homeowners who benefit from the programme’s popularity.

“Blind Gekocht” also allows commercial partnerships, and for the window and skylight company VELUX, participating in the show was the perfect way to demonstrate its speciality of infusing homes with two things everyone wants more of: daylight and fresh air.  

Working with the Belgian cross-media agency The Pool, VELUX partnered with “Blind Gekocht” with the primary goal to discover, inspire and inform. 

A full TV package was created for VELUX with trailers, billboards, and active product integration in multiple episodes of the programme, which is aired by the Flemish TV channel VIER as part of the SBS media group. Viewers who tuned in to “Blind Gekocht” saw VELUX workers consult on window and skylight placement and professionally instal products that helped dramatically change the look and feel of each home.

In addition to VELUX’s presence in the programme itself, numerous native content articles in the Blind Gekocht Online Magazine highlighted the benefits of VELUX’s home solutions. The online magazine created a natural and direct interaction between TV and online content by showcasing the products used in the programme’s home renovations through articles and videos. It also allowed fans of the show to learn more about the lives of the participants, deepening their emotional connection.

Online articles were also placed across the networks of international media company Mediahuis, which publishes the Belgian news sites De Standaard, Het Nieuwsblad, Het Belang van Limburg and Gazet van Antwerpen.

Although it centred around the “Blind Gekocht” programme, the VELUX campaign was carried out across a variety of mediums and channels.

Billboards and trailers were created for all TV episodes of the programme. Five native articles were published on multiple websites that presented a detailed plan of the renovated homes. These articles included interviews with the homeowners explaining how the VELUX renovation would improve their homes and make them more livable. There were also native product articles that explained the benefits of the VELUX products featured in the programme. 

In the show itself, VELUX product placement was achieved in multiple situations in multiple houses and across multiple episodes. The purpose was to show the audience the range of products and to highlight the USPs of bringing light and ventilation into homes.

Advertisers want to be able to tell a story about their products and that is precisely what VELUX Belgium got out of its partnership with The Pool and “Blind Gekocht”. With their omni-channel integrated campaign, VELUX and The Pool created TV-focused content that was leveraged online for more detail-oriented content pieces.

From VELUX’s perspective, the campaign did precisely what it hoped it would.

"Blind Gekocht gave VELUX a high brand exposure and it was a good way to show people planning to build or renovate the influence of more daylight, ventilation and isolation in their homes. Our collaboration with The Pool has helped us to create a relationship based on trust because we both strive for greater results, which we achieved in the end,” Annelies

Van Winkel, Digital Brand Manager at VELUX Belgium, said.