Furniture Smart Galleries
OVERVIEW
Furniture Smart was the inspiration of a seasoned Central Florida furniture retailer. In keeping with the latest trends in consumer shopping, Furniture Smart stores were designed to provide the shopper with a retail experience. The concept revolved around designing an innovative type retail home furnishing store that would represent a “Disney-esque” shopping experience. The stores would be themed and marketed as a destination. The first store to open was in northeast Orlando and themed the “Street of Dreams.” The second store to open its doors was in west Orlando and the theme was “New Orleans.”
With its creative approach to marketing home furnishings, Furniture Smart needed a firm that had the marketing and communications ingenuity to successfully promote the concept to a defined market.
CHALLENGE
Working closely with the company’s president and senior management team, Patterson/Bach had to develop and implement a marketing communications campaign that would effectively communicate this new retail shopping concept to the upscale home furnishing buyer.
MARKETING REQUIREMENTS
- Act as Furniture Smart’s marketing department, developing annual marketing and communications plans.
- Work with Furniture Smart’s financial department to develop financial promotions and purchase incentives.
- Work with Furniture Smart’s purchasing department on monthly and quarterly product promotions and product line development.
- Design and execute a grand opening advertising campaign targeting the upscale furniture buyer.
- Design and execute advertising that would communicate the uniqueness of the Furniture Smart shopping experience. Create an awareness of and comprehension and preference for Furniture Smart Galleries.
- Design and execute a public relations campaign to create a “buzz” within the target market.
- Recommend the development of a database marketing strategy targeting Furniture Smart customers.
- Monitor competitive advertising and promotional recommend changes or additions to current promotions Furniture Smart’s market competitiveness.
POSITIONING
Furniture Smart Galleries is a chain of individually themed, upscale, value priced home furnishing stores each comprised of eight distinct galleries designed to provide the shopper with a unique and enjoyable shopping experience.
CREATIVE APPROACH
Furniture Smart Galleries offers the upscale furniture shopper a unique and intriguing retail experience. The creative approach required an eyecatching design and clever messaging to demand attention and communicate the uniqueness of the Furniture Smart shopping adventure. The target audience is upscale women ages 35 to 54 with a household income of $100K plus and home values in excess of $150K. The creative conveyed the feeling that “this is something new” and invoked an “I need to see this!” response within the target market.
- Recommended a name change from Furniture Smart to Furniture Smart Galleries.
- Print Campaign: four-color magazine and newspaper print ads placed in local upscale and designer magazines and The Orlando Sentinel.
- Radio Campaign: 60-second radio spots placed on stations with listener profiles corresponding to the target market. Sponsorship of the local radio traffic broadcasts.
- Direct Mail Campaign: Using a cluster marketing strategy to target households with the highest propensity to purchase furniture, a unique, four-color direct mail piece was designed and distributed, via solo mail, to 40,000 select households within a six-mile radius of the store.
- Public Relations Campaign: news releases and special grand opening events to create an awareness of the Furniture Smart stores, while providing a value-added element to the advertising campaign.
EVALUATION
The grand opening and phase two campaign created a high level of awareness within the target market. Initial customer traffic in the store exceeded management’s expectations.
Due to an under capitalization situation, Furniture Smart Galleries ceased operations in November 2001.
Grand Opening Direct Mail
Advertising Campaign
