HGTV: Together We Make It Home

By Tim Nudd

Read on AdAge | Watch launch spot

HGTV steps back from its daily business of chronicling the buying, selling and renovating of houses to explore the deeper meaning that homes hold in a new spot marking the network’s 30th anniversary.

The 60-second spot, created by agency MOCEAN, follows a young family that moves into a house and makes it their own over the course of several decades—before selling and turning the place over to another young family. There is no dialogue in the ad, which relies instead on the unspoken truths about time passing—and lives lived—within the same four walls.

The spot, which will premiere this Sunday (Aug. 31) on CBS’s “Big Brother” broadcast, is the first branded HGTV spot in over a year. The tagline is, “Together, we make it home.”

“HGTV has long delivered audiences amazing home transformations and inspiring renovations that entertain,” said Lauren Burack, SVP of marketing at HGTV. “We wanted this spot to evoke a deeper connection to our viewers and the homes and home stories that they live and breathe every day.”

“HGTV is a brand that serves to inspire personal connections to a home—honoring this space as both a beautiful structure and a functional place to grow throughout all chapters in life’s story. This was our North Star in developing the creative for this campaign,” said Greg Harrison, chief creative officer at MOCEAN.

That goal led to an emotion-driven script and naturalistic production design, said Olivia York, associate creative director at MOCEAN. “Spanning over three decades—the same timeline as HGTV’s existence—viewers are able to picture themselves within each room and meaningful vignette, proving that every home is unique but the emotional attachment to its importance is universal,” she said.

The team designed the room aesthetics of each era to reflect styles from the ’90s to today, allowing the home’s structural development to mirror the changes and growth of the family within, York added. With the final tagline, “we knew that viewers would understand this as a reflection of their own lived experience, while nodding to HGTV’s support in defining what home means to each of its beloved viewers,” she said.