ETD: 843 New ventures; What is branding?; Home Furnishings
Study
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Dec 16 13:11:57 GMT 2004
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0843 December 16, 2004
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] New ventures
[3] What is branding?
[4] Home Furnishings Study
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
We're looking for another venture to get into (see 2 below). So, let us
know what you have going or considering.
One of our staff is on a six month assignment in the Middle East, and we
set him up with ICQ, a free service http://www.icq.com/ with millions of
users. Plus it links to AOL's Instant Messenger. Now we are able to
communicate instantly with him daily. More importantly, we all have
headsets and microphones which allows us to talk PC-to-PC for free! And it
is very clear and just like we were on cell phones. I can see this being
used by companies with remote offices.
What's more, they have a PC-to-phone option which allows us to call to a
phone, rather than to a PC. We are testing that option now, since we all
use cells, and it will be a great way to stay in touch. What about any
other new technologies? What have you found?
Branding is one of those terms bantered about by many organizations, even
though they have no idea what it's all about. What does branding mean to
you?
Pam Danziger has a new report on home furnishings, which, like all of Pam's
reports, is quite good.
9 days until Christmas - a little over a week. How are you doing this year?
Tell us about your business, which will remain for posterity at
our "Members: Who Are You?" site. Anything to do with the retail world,
i.e., supplier, retailer, consulting,
etc. http://etailersdigest.com/resources/members/index.htm And we have a
form there for you to tell us about you. As I said when I first proposed
this idea, we have "known" each other for a long time, yet we often don't
know anything about each other. So, tell us who you are and what you do.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] New ventures
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We just completed a two year engagement at a professional firm where we
established a plan to get them major Fortune 100 accounts, even though they
are a very small firm. And now we are looking for new opportunities. One
of our team is on an assignment in the Middle East, and we are looking for
others unique challenges.
Many organizations contact us for assistance, and we have learned over the
years to only take on engagements where they will listen to what we tell
them, and they will be successful. We work with organizations either on a
fixed-fee basis (monthly retainer) or a retainer and a piece of the
business. The challenge is far more important than the money.
Where we shine is with the ability to see a different slant for a business,
i.e., either a new use for existing products or services or a new target
market for the products/services. For example, a software house we helped
sold an outdated software solution to distributors in the paper
industry. We refaced the front end, and developed a marketing plan to get
them into a new arena where they are now successful.
In another case, we had a retail chain that was losing money because of
poor buying and lack of focus to details. We designed an application to
get them to learn more about their customers to buy for the customers and
to maintain the inventory that customers want. It sounds simple (which it
is), but takes discipline. However, the rewards are wonderful.
We are looking at a couple of opportunities now that sound very
interesting. One organization has a unique, and badly-needed service that
every retailer should want and have. Yet, they are slow to market with the
service.
I think we all know about some of the ventures we were in - like the
company in Tortola where we built a customer base in 190 countries in less
than a year - all on a shoestring. And the service organization with
minimum sales, that we repositioned successfully to be sold to a public
company for 32 times annual sales.
So, if you have a potential opportunity that you would like to discuss,
send me a note. We have simple rules:
1. You will listen to what we say, and follow our guidelines.
2. We have fun.
George
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[3] What is branding?
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My son Heath is a VP at a major ad agency (who, BTW, just won a silver
medal for print advertising at the RX Awards,
which is the biggest for creative in the health care industry.
http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=136708).
He and I get into these philosophical discussions, which usually are around
the question "What is Branding?"
Many believe branding is merely getting your logo in front of prospects. A
school of advertising that says, "If the consumer has heard of us, we've
done our job." Brand value is extremely difficult to measure, so branding
campaigns can be easily defended with grandiose predictions of future glory.
The historical perception that branding is strictly the domain of
marketing, design and communication is now being challenged. Brands are an
expression business strategy that has meaning and relevance for
everyone. And, with the push to corporate governance, brought on by the
Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and you will find branding takes on an entire
new meaning - not only getting your name out there, but doing so ethically
(imagine that).
With the Internet, many believe a name identity that will work on global
e-commerce and design a real Web site that will deliver the message. All
the other things in between, which took months and years of expensive teams
to mull over, are now replaced by quick creative services. The magic is now
in the cheapest and the fasted deliveries of creative ideas, and the
boardroom style branding think tanks are being booted out.
So what do you think? What is branding and what does it mean to you?
George
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[4] Home Furnishings Study
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A new consumer insights study on the home furnishings market released today
by Unity Marketing, covering furniture and decorative accents, reveals that
the percentage of consumers that bought home goods in the past year dropped
dramatically from the previous year.
Purchase incidence — the percentage of adult consumers who purchased
specific home products in the past 12 months — dropped on average 15
percentage points across the 20 different categories of home goods included
in the 2004 survey. The average amount spent in 11 of the 20 categories
also declined, reflecting shoppers’ preference for discounters, dollar
stores, warehouse clubs and mass merchants for home furnishings.
With fewer consumers buying home furnishings and spending less when they
do, home retailers and marketers must take a fresh look at their marketing
and branding efforts to make sure they align with consumers’ changing
priorities.
Already the impacts of a more intensely competitive home retail market is
being felt, as Pier 1 just announced comparable store sales declined 9.1
percent in November and Furniture Brands International, the country’s
largest home furnishings manufacturer with Broyhill, Lane, Thomasville,
Henredon and Drexel Heritage brands, cautioned stockholders about weakness
in fourth quarter results.
Consumers are not cocooning and feathering their nest like they used to;
Consumers’ new priority is eliminating clutter and organizing what’s left
The cocooning trend was very good to home marketers while it lasted, but
today an entirely new sensibility is taking over. Consumers are
downscaling, downsizing and eliminating clutter. Touch points of the new
consumer trend are magazines like Real Simple, dedicated to doing more with
less, and shows like TLC’s Clean Sweep and HGTV’s Mission: Organization.
Even the popular home decorating shows like TLC’s While You Were Out and
Trading Spaces are not about the materialistic cocooning lifestyle, rather
they reflect a new do-it-yourself home decorating approach that is about
doing more with less.
The cocooning lifestyle peaked in 1998 when the typical household spent
$1,601 on home furnishings and it has been falling ever since. In 2003 the
typical American household spent only $1,497 on home furnishings, according
to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer expenditure survey.
This research predicts the new direction for the home furnishings market
and opportunities for marketers and retailers to profit from the changes.
There are five different personalities or segments in the home furnishings
market, but only two of five spend more than average on home goods. The
report reveals insights into the psychology of selling to each of the five
home shopper personalities, their turn ons and turn offs.
15 Key Findings Revealed and 9 Strategic Opportunities Explored
The research reveals 15 key findings of changes, shifts and movement in the
home furnishings market. Nine strategic opportunities for home retailers
and marketers to grow their sales and expand their share of market are
included.
Added-Value Special Report: Luxury Shoppers Are the Home Marketers’ ‘Sweet
Spot’
Luxury consumers (incomes $75,000 and above) lead in purchase incidence in
19 of 20 categories in the study and spend more than anyone else. Luxury
consumers’ average spending on home furnishings is 138 times more than the
average. A special section of the Home Report focuses on the latest
insights on the luxury home furnishings consumer, including eight things
that every home marketer needs to know about the luxury consumer.
Pam Danziger,
President of Unity Marketing
Author of Let Them Eat Cake: Marketing Luxury to the Masses — as well as
the Classes.
717-336-1600
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/
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