Do Brands Even Matter In The Furniture Category?

Part 3 - The Final Rant

READ PART ONE & TWO PUBLISHED IN MY

FURNITURE TODAY MAGAZINE BLOG

Click the image to read Part 1 & Part 2

Do Brands Even Matter In The Furniture Category?

Part 3 - The Final Rant

I think everyone has seen these statistics:

Congress has an approval rating of less than 19%

Consumers trust in the main stream media is at 6%

BUT, brand recognition in the furniture industry is greater than our trust in the main stream media. We’re at 8%, so let’s party.

I have only witnessed a handful of great furniture manufacturer’s websites. Most of them are geared towards furniture wholesale buyers and not the consumer…you know purposely ignoring or not recognizing that irritating 60% of consumers that do search for brand information. I know what many are thinking, I don’t want to show all my great product because the competition will see it, knock it off or whatever. Get over it. Have you ever heard of Google search or Google images, just put in the SKU number in search and/or upload the image to Google images and you’ll find “The emperor has no clothes”. Everything and everybody is transparent on the internet, take advantage of it, don’t hide from it. In my opinion, you could take the brand logo of the website(s) of most furniture brand websites and interchange them, and I wager that the consumer would never know the difference or have even a minuscule brand engagement because most of the brand websites are pedestrian at best.

The websites are all templated, showing categories, some pictures, usually REALLY bad pictures taken in Asia, and some boring product specifications and information that maybe had 45 seconds of thought put into each product. We go to market, we spend a ton of money promoting our brands to get placements which is a good and necessary process, and many of the brands do an incredible job of doing that. Then after the markets we all go home and we abandon all the marketing of those brands until the next market.

Of course we need to spend big at markets to “get the customer/the buyers in to see it, engage with it and buy it”. Who are these people? They are the consumers …. furniture buying consumers and they use the same visual, emotional and deductible purchasing processes all consumers use, to make a purchase decision. The difference is that they’re just a bit more educated, visually stimulated and engaged…probably because you invested in your brand, it’s products and it’s messaging. Do you get my point? And then what? We are busy working on the next market introductions, messaging, education and more with our unproven strategy of “hope” that the retailer(s) may market and merchandise it correctly, and if they don’t, it’s floor inventory and off you go. I’ve never understood how any brand in this industry would invest so heavily in its product development, design and marketing for furniture markets, only to leave the final selling strategy and brand messaging to 20,000+ retailers to define “what they think” your brand is. By allowing this, you are not a brand, you are a product manufacturer.

I Want To Know Moments Explained

I will be the first to admit that creating, developing and implementing a brand platform is

incredibly difficult with the myriad of marketing platforms available in this new digital

“internet of everything” world. But difficult is not an excuse for ignoring your job or

failure! That is not what my parents taught me as I’m sure you can relate. To me it

means you must work harder and smarter than everyone else, or relegate yourself to

mediocrity, or less.

Today, according to Google Compete, now known as Think with Google, yes I use

Google a lot in my research simply because they own the search/knowledge

environment, and they simplify their research so anyone can understand and

disseminate their information.

Google breaks down the consumer’s path to purchase into 4 simple processes:

I want to know moments –

According to Retailing Today - 81% of consumers start their search process on line

66% of smartphone users turn to their phone after seeing something on a TV

commercial

I want to go moments –

Find it “near me” searches have doubled in the past year

82% of smartphone users use a search engine when looking for a local business

I want to do moments –

91% of smartphone users turn to their phones for ideas while doing a task

100MM+ hours of “how to” content have been watched on YouTube so far this year.

(Hmmmmm, didn’t I just write a column on YouTube and video? I would suggest you go

back and re-read it).

I want to buy moments –

82% of smartphone users consult their phones while “IN-STORE” deciding what to buy.

(I bet they’re looking at your Brand’s website to get more information, which probably

has just the minimum amount of information, if any at all).

29% increase in mobile purchase conversion rates this past year. (Is your brand’s

website full “mobile responsive”? If not, your Brand IQ will drop well below that 8%

awareness level I mentioned in the first part of this article.

So I bet you’re asking, what does all this have to do with “My Brand”? Everything, or

nothing, depending on if you want to do the hard work to embrace how consumers

travel on their path to purchase to "buy your stuff".

Ignore this information about how on-line and digital works on the path to purchase your

stuff, and consumers will ignore you too! AND THEN WHAT HAPPENS, you use al the

search and digital tools available to do what..... find their next career! Kinda ironic, huh?

This is task #1 for brands.

You must create a branded environment that embraces the Millennial/Gen X /Boomer

buyer. They all use technology, to search for, learn more and hopefully want more from

your brand.

Assuming you’ve done a brand audit, which I doubt you have … and if you haven’t, you

are purely “guessing and hoping” what you believe your brand is and assuming that

consumers believe your brand is what you say it is. Good luck with that, maybe at the

furniture markets, but then it’s game on when it comes to the consumer. (Remember

brands on average have a 8% brand awareness, so it isn’t working).

Now you must put a digital face and soul to your brand and that all begins with your

website, and from what I’ve seen you’ve probably invested the least amount of time and

passion into doing that right.

So before I suggest a few ideas for you to consider, you must address the

elephant in the room: Your Marketing Department, it’s roles, responsibilities and

overall contribution to “all your stakeholders”.

When I joined the industry, as an “outsider” who had a successful career as a marketing and promotion

executive/agency owner, I was told that the function of the marketing person was to focus on the furniture

markets.

OK, I got that, but then I questioned what my role was after each market?

I didn’t get an answer, probably because no one ever really had put much thought into

that. The goal was placements and market penetration at the furniture markets which

made total sense, but then what? What about sales velocity after all this investment and

work at the markets?

The problem today in many companies is that the marketing person rose up through the

ranks of the company and has very little, if any knowledge, what marketing a brand or

product is all about outside of confines of what they know .... internally, or as an

insider with no outsider experience. Sure they may have great sales ability and have

great retailer relations, but do they have a clue as to how consumer behaviors affect

engagement with brands or products on the final path to purchase? They tend to leave

that to their retailers, “hoping” they can create the velocity necessary to keep their

factories operating.

When I see titles in this industry, V.P Sales & Marketing, I immediately

wonder how a person who has dedicated themselves to a successful

career in sales, all of a sudden is a marketing guru, too? I’m not buying

it.

I can tell you from experience, most of the brand marketing people I have met with in

this industry are not marketers, not even close. I can say this because when I do

engage the senior level marketing people, and ask questions about what they’re doing

for their retailers, in-store, out of store, digital, the web and more, the results are less

than disappointing and they have no clue on how simple marketing tools can affect the

path to purchase for their retailers.

OK, I probably offended a lot of people with this statement, yet my intent is to help, not

denigrate.

I've worked with several V.P. of Sales and I can attest, they really know their products,

their reps and their retailers and how to motivate and engage them all. Many are/were

rock stars in that position, but I have NO clue how they can be both a rock star at sales

and at marketing....and be relevant and really good at both functions.

The role of a sales leader is a full time job, Managing the product, the sales force,

retailer relations and so much more. The role of a marketer, in today’s economy,

especially with the marketing platforms changing weekly as to how to engage

consumers, is a full time and very difficult job too. I suspect the reason the titles of

Sales & Marketing are merged revolves around one of two reasons.

Management has no clue what Marketing really is, or they want to have the title

out there to look good and save the money on hiring a real marketing person, or

both. Either way, in today’s world, using that rationale will keep you as an 8%er

with the success graph pointing downward.

So think about it, with 30%-50% of all products going discontinued and the funnel needs

to be replaced with new intros at markets, how can a VP of sales, focus on the selling

attributes of the new/existing line of products, work with the sales reps and the retailers

to hone the product, and then develop a comprehensive marketing platform with product

messaging et all, for these products for retailers to buy at market? And then develop

the plan to help them market/sell those products at retail?

That’s a whole lot of responsibility and knowledge required to be “successful at

both”....almost super-human .... I wouldn’t want that job! To me, it would be like having a

bad case of

Furniture Attention Deficit Syndrome – (FADD)

OK, enough lecturing, let’s discuss the main subject, Your Brand;

This is the first and most important idea for you to consider:

1. Instead of you making your brand about YOU, make it about ME/The consumer”

2. Research and embrace how consumers interact with “search” with “social” and “in-

Store”. You’ll quickly realize they are very visual first, content/conversation inspired

second, idea focused third, functionality fourth and all that is wrapped up into the

“complete value equation”.

Consumers want to make their statement first, that’s why there are so many DIY home

shows, cooking channels and more. They are immersed in I want to know and I want

to do moments. Embrace that.

Your marketing person should know this and be totally focused on this aspect of your

brand to accommodate these “I want to” moments.

With all that has been said, does YOUR Brand even matter in the furniture category?

My guess is probably not, and with what I witness daily, it may never matter unless you

decide to change from being irrelevant to relevant so you’ll always be an 8%er for now,

but possibly extinct tomorrow. Then you can join all the other manufacturers, retailers

and jobs we’ve lost, you know:

The Furniture Wars, How America Lost a $50BN Industry?

STOP THE INSANITY

Like my Grandfather always said, “You’ll never learn younger”, and we're a very

old industry!

WANT HELP WITH YOUR BRAND & CONSUMER

ENGAGEMENT?

THAT'S WHAT WE DO

About Bill Napier

Bill has been in the Marketing Industry for over 35 years.

Furniture Today Magazine has labeled Bill Napier as being a “disruptor” in the home

furnishing industry and he loves that moniker!

In the 90’s, Bill’s marketing agency PMA Network (Promotional Marketing Associates,

Inc.), with offices in Minneapolis and Chicago, launched many consumer brands, as well

as being a strategic consultant for The Times Square Millennium celebration. He was

hired by Ashley Furniture in 2000 as their Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and was

blessed to be part of their astronomic growth from $800MM – $2.7BN over his 5-year

tenure.

He has also worked with two other furniture brands as CMO. He has been an industry

consultant since 2007 and with his company Napier Marketing Group has developed

and managed some of the largest promotions ever done in the industry.

Bill has developed and maintains the largest aggregated marketing informational

website for retailers and brands:www.social4retail.com.

You can contact Bill at:

billnapier@napiermkt.com - 612-217-1297 - www.napiermkt.com