We looked for a few people who are well-connected in the social milieu of the new target group, both online and offline. And we were successful. The Wehrle brothers live together with a third roommate in a typical “guys’ apartment” not far from the new store. The three men are local celebrities, well-known for their distinctive fashion sense, who are not only active on the St. Gallen party scene, but also have quite an extensive online social network. We quickly removed all the furnishings from their apartment and replaced them with designer furniture from Domus. We included a price tag on every single piece of furniture – even the cabinet in the bathroom and the dog.

Not long after, the Wehrles threw one of their legendary house parties with a DJ and cool drinks and invited all of their followers to come. The party raged for a whole weekend. Not only were there tours of the house that went over to the new Domus shop (where, among other things, the Riklin brothers were lying in bed and could be chatted with via live video stream), but all the partygoers could buy any of the furniture in the house and take it with them.

The opening weekend was a complete success: over two days, 2,200 people visited the Wehrle brothers’ apartment and Domus Studio, generating around CHF 250,000 in sales. At the end of the second day, all of the furniture in the apartment was sold out ... except for their dog. Furthermore, we were able to compile 1,241 new customer addresses and 843 people signed up to receive the Domus newsletter. The event was even covered in the German news media. The success of the event was also clear on social media: on the opening weekend, we counted more than 1,000 posts about the party. Domus Studio will continue to benefit from the online and offline resonance of this ambient marketing event, and will also rely on the power of ambient marketing in the future.