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What Is BAU?
Small creative project requests on homedepot.com are called “Business-As-Usual Requests” or “BAU Requests”. These requests come from stakeholders throughout the organization and typically follow the same pattern on approximately a 3-5 day timeline.
The BAU copywriter's responsibility is to ensure that all BAU requests are written to the standards of The Home Depot. Verbiage, style and voice are all key components to consider in every BAU request.
Types of BAU Requests
Heroes
The message featured on the top of a category page. This can be an offer, a brand awareness message, a general savings message or anything else. You must include the brand name if possible since there is no room for a logo. A hero can have 56 characters in the all-caps headline and 120 in the sentence-case subhead.
PLP Banners, Search Banners & Toasters
A PLP banner goes on a product landing page (PLP). A search banner appears on a page of search results. A toaster is a banner that pops up from the bottom of the page. These can be offers, brand awareness messages, general savings messages or anything else. Toasters are often used on PIP pages for information relevant to an individual product. It's not necessary to have brand names in the copy because a logo can be shown.
PLP Banners and Search Banners can be either full width or split. Toasters are generally full width.
All-caps headlines on a full-width banner are roughly 56 characters per line; sentence-case subheads are roughly 87 characters per line. If this banner is on the page it is promoting, it doesn't need a CTA button, but has one otherwise.
Split banners take up half of the space of full-width banners in order to accommodate two messages side by side. All-caps headlines on a split banner are roughly 28 characters per line; sentence-case subheads are roughly 46 characters per line.
Visual Navigation Banners
Visual Navigation (vis nav) banners are banners made of pods that direct the customer to different FPNs (Featured Product Nodes) that have curated lists of products. Each pod can consist of an image, a title-case headline of up to 24 characters, 65-80 characters of paragraph copy and up to three title-case list links, 26 characters per link.
There can be 1, 2, 3, 4 or 6 pods in a vis nav. A single pod is the size of a full-width banner. Otherwise, pods are roughly 1/6 width.
Tiles/Pods
Small amounts of copy that can fit on little spaces are called tiles or pods. Often, these are savings messages since there isn’t a lot of room for much else. Pods can vary in length, but are usually all caps in the headline and title case in the subhead (if there is one).
Credit/Kitchen Offers
Credit and kitchen offers have special pages with headlines, subheads and disclaimers. This content will usually be provided in a spreadsheet. The BAU copywriter does not edit these for content, but for grammar, spelling and registration marks. It's also a good idea to check license numbers to make sure they are up to date (they will be registered with the current year).
Recalls
The BAU copywriter will occasionally be asked to do pre-launch validation for product recalls. Like Credit and kitchen offers, it's not about editing the content, but proofreading.
DWS (Digital Workshops)
The BAU copywriter will occasionally be asked to write/edit titles and descriptions for workshop videos. The title will usually be provided; the description may or may not be provided. The BAU copywriter's task is to ensure the description is accurate and matches The Home Depot voice. Approvals go through the Promotions and Events Workshops writer.
Standard Messaging
Certain messaging has approved language that must be used. When you encounter projects with these asks, please refer to guidance decks that can be found in ADAM, or speak with your approvers or the senior copy manager. These include, but are not limited to:
Delivery
Bulk
Eco Options
Price Match Guarantee
Disasters
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