Damian Pilok and Rafał Woźniak have been leading the marketing of Polish family-founded furniture company Mirjan24 for over a decade. Woźniak is also in charge of the company’s website.
We reached 1 million euros in monthly turnover in Germany, our key international market, a couple of years ago. This was a big victory for us, as a small Polish family business. But our ambitions pushed us further. We wanted to double, or even triple, this result. Compared to international or established local players, however, our furniture business was still relatively unknown among German consumers.
To accelerate growth, we needed to increase brand awareness and create a positive image of our company in the minds of German consumers. We soon realised that the most effective way to do this would be through engaging videos.
We knew that producing these videos would be a challenge because we have never done a project like this before. We were initially hesitant to make a large investment and decided to handle the production internally, relying on the creativity of our employees.
The ideas that sparked the low-cost campaign
We started with the idea for a YouTube campaign. We wanted to show how our brand reflects major life changes, such as moving in together, starting a family, and having children.
When deciding where to shoot the videos, we searched for a space near our headquarters but couldn't find a studio that met our technical criteria. This initial challenge sparked the idea of renting a local fire station and transforming it to suit our needs. We built partition walls, painted them, brought in our products, and added decorative touches to make the place feel like home.
As a next step, we found professional, yet affordable actors for our project on social media.
And, to make our limited budget go even further, we rented professional cameras and light controlling tools, instead of buying them.
Illuminating insights to make our videos shine
As we were doing it all ourselves, we had to build — and master — video production skills in-house too. When we started experimenting with videos, we had questions about the best ways to capture audience attention, optimal product and logo positioning, and integrating voiceovers.
We partnered with Google to improve our videos based on the YouTube ABCD (attention, branding connection, direction) principles. We started using these principles even before the shoot, for example, when deciding on the optimal position of the furniture.
Here are the key things we learnt:
1. Start with an action and the brand name
We discovered that we only have six seconds to grab viewers' attention before they can skip an ad. Our initial draft had a much longer, slower introduction. After revising it with our Google partners, we produced a catchier and more dynamic version.
The branding principle of the ABCDs, “show up early and throughout”, also showed us that our brand should be mentioned at the beginning of the video . This is why we chose the opening phrase: “With furniture from the Mirjan24 online store, your home takes on a new meaning”.
We managed to trim our 31-second first draft into a dynamic 15-second video, showcasing various uses for our furniture, like sharing a meal, celebrating holidays, and spending time with children:
2. Optimise your logo
Our regular logo colour is red. However, when we incorporated it into the video, we soon saw that it was difficult to see and didn't blend well with the background colours. That's why we decided to switch to a white version of our logo, which is much clearer.
We also identified a light background and avoided distractions, such as echo or shades covering parts of the furniture. This help keep viewers' attention on what the narrator says and on the furniture shown:
3. Use a voiceover to tell the story
In our early drafts, we used background music to accompany visuals. However, we later discovered that a voiceover was crucial to tell our story and communicate the benefits of our furniture. As a result, we integrated a voiceover into our videos.
We chose a calm, feminine voice as it reflected a pleasant family atmosphere We also experimented with various background music options, selecting a relaxing melody to convey the cosy feeling of home:
In addition to optimising the format and creatives for our videos, we ensured that they resonated with our local audience. For example, many Germans love watching sports, especially football. This is why we included a scene with sports fans watching a game on our comfortable sofa in one of our ads.
Videos that ignite brand awareness and sales
We performed Brand Lift and Search Lift studies, comparing the awareness and perception of the brand among people who saw our ads on YouTube versus those who didn't.
Users who watched our ads were 10x times more likely to search our brands or products on Google Search.
The studies showed that since the launch of the campaign in the first quarter of 2024, the relative search lift for “Mirjan24” increased by more than 10X on Google Search. This indicates that users who watched our ads were 10x times more likely to search our brands or products. Additionally, positive brand perception was 2.5X higher for those people who had seen one or more of the videos.
One of our key learnings is that with a trusted partner and open-minded approach, one can achieve more than they thought they were capable of. Most excitingly, our monthly turnover multiplied, reaching 5-6 million euros.
Moreover, we invested 80 million euros in a new logistics centre, where we dedicated space for our own video production studio. We are now exploring shorter, more humorous formats of our ads to not only engage with customers to continue to increase brand awareness and perception — but also to make them smile.
