01/02/04   Square One starts HMV relationship with huge national DVD campaign Square One Group began a new high-profile relationship at the start of 2004. Its first job for leading music, film and games retailer HMV was a massive new cross-media campaign called the Essential DVD 100. To kick-start the new year, a time when sales are traditionally light following people's 'overspend' at Christmas, HMV launched the Essential DVD 100 campaign on 12 January. Essentially a 'range' campaign, the main message communicated to customers was that HMV stocks a wide and knowledgeable range of DVD titles, across all genres. The campaign was intended to differentiate HMV from other high street retailers, focus on DVD chart titles, positioning them as 'the place to go for the best range of films available on DVD on the high street'. The idea was to target a wide range of DVD users – from new owners of DVD hardware to dyed-in-the-wool film fanatics – and illustrate the depth and range of HMV's DVD product, encouraging them to purchase at full-price based on quality, rather than at cut-price based on cost. Square One created a 40 page DVD case-sized booklet, carrying bespoke write-ups of 100 top movies available on DVD, along with supporting POS items and a bespoke DVD featuring trailers of the featured movies. The campaign ran nationally, with prominent displays in the windows of all HMV flagship stores, including HMV Oxford Street. Early indications are of a significant increase in back-catalogue, full-price sales based on like-for-like comparison period in 2003.