I wrote a blog called THE ARROGANCE OF IGNORANCE that everyone should read in this industry. The video of Don Draper's retort to a client that didn't want to change is magnificent. You read it HERE

​I think everyone has seen these statistics:

• Congress has an approval rating of less than 19% or less
• 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.
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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. 

Then they allow you to search by STYLE. The question I ask is whose style? I have NO CLUE what Transitional is, do you? Why can't you search by color/image showing similar images to that product style you like and clicked on? Then when you put in search terms, many come back NO ITEMS FOUND, because they didn't use the proper furniture industry slang. That will help your bounce rate!
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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 when we do it all over again, and again and again.

​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.
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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, but they don't have much choice because you've all but abandoned a brand strategy for them to engage with and promote.

​By allowing this, you are not a brand, you are a product manufacturer.

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.
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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.
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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? 

Lessons learned from Don Draper