Rheem Water Heaters
Trade School Custom Production for The Home Depot’s Orange Apron Media & Rheem | September 2025
Originally, there were going to be four water heaters, which meant four :15sec videos and a total of 16 stills we needed to capture all in one day. There were also only supposed to be two sets, but when we went from four spots to three the number of sets increased to three as well to give each water heater its own unique environment.
At its core, this was a “library shoot” because we weren’t on the hook to make the final campaign deliverables. The Orange Apron Media (OAM) team in-house at The Home Depot would be doing that.
That didn’t stop us from coming up with some fun ideas to make water heaters “sexy” – yes, that was actually part of the brief we were given.
My favorite concept by far was for the Tankless Water Heater, which we nicknamed the “Brady Bunch video” because our original idea was to have mostly sound effects of a large family getting home from a soccer match and everyone going to take showers at the same time. The whole split-screen concept that made its way into the final was because of the storyline for Brady Bunch.
So let’s talk about the colors… we originally pitched using colors from the BEHR 2025 Designer palette – trendy, peaceful colors. The OAM art direction team from The Home Depot’s wanted a completely different direction. During our Pre-Production meeting, one of the Rheem clients walked onto the sets and said, “I didn’t realize we were shooting a Crayola commercial” and another one said, “Well, I can’t say I’ve ever seen a garage or mud room THAT color before.”
Make water heaters sexy.
Rheem’s marketing challenge lies in the fact that water heaters aren’t exactly exciting or visually appealing.
As Rheem leans into innovation while targeting younger homeowners, they need more engaging assets that get a new generation to pay attention to their water heaters.
Create engaging and visually appealing water heater assets that communicate key RTBs for water heaters including efficiency, energy savings, and smart functionality.
The Problem: Homeowners don’t think about their water heater until there is an immediate issue.
Audience: Young Homeowners interested in sustainability / energy efficiency with an older home (non-new construction) looking for a proactive replacement to their home’s water heater.
Homeowner Takeaways: Catch up on the exciting innovation you never knew you needed in a water heater with Rheem water heaters – Available at The Home Depot.
Our Win: Getting homeowners excited for their next water heater by showing the upgrade is truly impactful for their day-to-day comfort.
Insight: Homeowners aren’t expecting innovation in water heaters.
Strategic Proposition: Catch up on the exciting innovation you never knew you needed in a water heater with Rheem water heaters – Available at The Home Depot
Action: Get homeowners excited for their next water heater by showing the upgrade is truly impactful for their day-to-day comfort
The fun part of this during the edit was making all of the tiles demonstrating the RTBs (Reasons To Believe – i.e., product features) logically work so the water heater stayed the focus as much as possible. So I storyboarded every size for Ryan (1:1, 4:5, 9:16 and 16:9). You can see how seamless all four sizes work together in one of the video blocks below.
3x :15s videos in most common social aspect ratios (16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5)
12x still lifestyle images (4 per SKU)
