We discovered a problem. In almost every internal meeting that we were in, we found that someone there was going to refer to our department as “Tool Rental.” The Home Depot started renting tools many years before including Large Equipment and Vehicles and changing the way we were referred to internally was a challenge. We had to break the habit of being referred to only as “Tool Rental” since we are so much more than that. And we believed that if we could bring awareness to our full business offering, we would inspire associates to become our brand ambassadors and hopefully (fingers crossed) refer to us in meetings as The Home Depot Rental.

So I came up with a plan using the limited budget that we had. The 5-year anniversary of the acquisition of Compact Power Inc (which allowed The Home Depot to begin renting Large Equipment) was happening in September 2022. I began to tease an online trivia contest and in-office hunt for a branded toy Excavator. Primarily using our internal social Yammer channel (since no one really opens corporate emails) I sent out information and generated excitement with associates while also educating them on how we are The Home Depot Rental and not “Tool Rental” With the help of some associates we hid 40 of these branded toy Excavators around the offices. There was a 3” x 5” card attached to each toy with instructions on how to enter the contest. The rules stated that once found you had to email your photo with the toy excavator to our marketing team with the caption “I Found The Home Depot Rental” for a chance to win.

10 lucky winners were randomly selected to win the Grand Prize of Rental branded merch. Everyone pretty much just wanted the Yeti cooler though.

This project was a hit in the office and generated tons of excitement and brought awareness to our Rental department. Turns out that a lot of associates weren’t aware the we had Large Equipment for rent. But they found out we did because of this fun way of getting our name out there. And best part of all - we have been in many meetings since this event and now there is someone who begins to say “Tool Rent..” but stops themselves and says “The Home Depot Rental”

Huzzah!