2021 Program Overview

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CONSUMER MARKETING Ace’s branding and promotional strategy has been designed to achieve the maximum name recognition, and drive traffic and profitable transactions to Ace stores based on a fully integrated consumer marketing plan.

National Advertising: Any national advertising effort by Ace, including

One-to-One Advertising: This level builds customer loyalty and sales through the Ace Rewards program (see page 21 for more information), and is an opportunity to communicate directly with the best customers. Local Advertising: Store-specific advertising within the retailers’ local neighborhoods, allowing retailers to build the Ace name in their local market. Ace Marketing Muscle is a local portal that allows retailers to create their own local marketing pieces, access Ace’s social media and reputation management platform, opt in to Ace’s new local paid search program called “Local Lift,” and order advertising supplies and signage. Online Marketing: In order to ensure that Ace is part of the consideration set when consumers start their shopping journey online, Ace is heavily investing in and establishing a strong presence in paid search and shopping ads in search engines such as Google, affiliate sites search engine optimization (SEO), and retargeting and prospecting display ads. • More than half of Ace’s online traffic is driven from the aforementioned online marketing efforts. • To ensure a consistent and accurate presence for all Ace stores online, specific “My Store” information from acehardware.com is fed to over 180 online directories, such as Google, Yahoo! Local and YellowPages.com, to capture consumers searching for your store. • Over 30,000 keywords are managed and maintained in Google, Yahoo! and Bing to ensure Ace is well represented when users are searching for our products and services. • Over 500 affiliate sites are leveraged to raise awareness for the brand and drive traffic and sales.

visual (television), audio (radio), digital and print. The Ace Brand Assessment supports these efforts. Regional Advertising: Market-level advertising efforts with groups of retailers. Regional advertising may include using Matching Funds or pooling co-op dollars in an effort to promote the Ace Brand within various markets. As groups in a market, retailers advertise using monthly preprints, which is called the Group Preprint Program (Major Market).

A. NATIONAL

Acehardware.com Acehardware.com is the online face of our brand and trusted destination for online products and project solutions. The website receives over 100 million visitors per year and offers convenient fulfilment options, including Buy Online, Pick Up In Store; Buy Online, Deliver From Store; Curbside Pickup and Ship to Home from Ace Retail Support Centers. Mission: To strengthen the brand via online marketing, as well as to grow profitable revenue via supporting/enhancing the store product mix and being a trusted resource for DIY projects and solutions. Strategy: Drive traffic to acehardware.com to engage core and new consumers with helpful content and product information that creates brand affinity and profitable transactions for our retailers.

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