Leroy Merlin makes magic from mistakes

кем Maud Largeaud , AdForum

It’s not always easy to be a foreigner abroad. Leroy Merlin, a France-based DIY chain, is hugely popular in Italy – despite the fact that Italians pronounce its name in myriad different ways. That presents a spelling problem too, especially when customers are searching for its site online (“Loyal Merou”, anyone?) In fact the confusion generates more than two million mistakes a year. So the store and its agency Publicis Italy decided to help out. They took the most common misspellings of the brand’s name and created parallel websites and Facebook pages. When consumers landed, on them, a little DIY-style animation swapped out the wrong letters, revealed the true spelling of the name – and directed visitors to the correct site. Once there, it offered them the chance to enrol in the store’s new DIY classes, in order to avoid any more mistakes.