Homeware & Interiors Companies spend millions of pounds on marketing, often committing a significant chunk of their revenue on promoting their brand, product or service. However, a significant chunk of this investment is wasted as many companies are completely out of touch with their customers.

These Interiors and Homes companies often become completely immersed in their brand and become too close to their marketing strategy. They lose touch with their customers, become consumed with marketing waffle and often elaborate on the truth, forgetting that consumers want simple, coherent messages.

In the last 20 years, the discipline of marketing has become significantly more sophisticated. New and diverse media mean marketers can choose different routes to consumer targeting. However, although consumer shopping habits have changed, particularly with the growth of internet shopping, their requirement for a simple and easy to understand message, hasn’t.

Honesty, integrity and trustworthiness are all implicit in a company’s relationship with its consumer. Establishing a relationship based on these three principals is a key strategy to recruiting and retaining customers. Honesty should be at the forefront of any relationship – business or otherwise. Promising more than will be delivered will put customers off and deter them from future purchases.

A simple three point approach to honesty in marketing is key:

1. Objectivity: Take a step back and think about what your customers want or need
2. Honesty: Be clear about what you’re offering
3. Clarity: Choose a maximum of two messages you want to push and keep these simple

Recently Morrison’s has seen an increase in footfall and sales following a high profile advertising and marketing campaign to emphasise its fresh food credentials and in-store preparation.

The ‘Fresh Choice For You’ advertisements highlight Morrison’s unique Market Street offering and the fact that its supermarket staff prepare fresh food in-store. Its simple and relevant message made the TV campaign the most memorable when it was first aired last year. Its two key messages also made it relevant to consumers and has helped to boost total sales up 5% to £7.5bn, outperforming the sector average growth and eclipsing its nearest rivals Asda, Sainsburys and Tesco as well as discounters Aldi and Lidl (according to latest TNS grocery market share figures).

Many businesses seem to miss the mark when it comes to promoting themselves. Brand owners need to take a step back and look at what they offer. It is always staggering at how few businesses promote basic facts about their brand in their marketing materials.

The White Room has recently worked with Mercury Cookers as part of a repositioning exercise. Established in 2000, Mercury is one of the most desirable and best performing range cookers on the market. However, Mercury focused their marketing on their design credentials, and cooking almost became an afterthought. The White Room changed the brand message to make it all about cooking. In fact, the brand strapline is now ‘designed for cooking’. It also pushed Mercury’s ‘made in Britain’ credentials at a time when the recession was at its most severe and consumers expressed a desire to support British manufacturing.

Another interior design brand failing to maximise its offering was Topps Tiles. When the White Room started working with them at the beginning of 2009, they already had good brand awareness. However, they had a disconnect with their potential clients and consumers were unaware of the sheer range of products available and the quality of the tiles on offer. Topps had always gone down the value route but had alienated customers who also wanted high quality products.

The White Room re-positioned the iconic brand as an innovative, contemporary brand, stocking a huge range of tiles at affordable prices. All of the supporting marketing materials utilise contemporary, inspirational imagery, with stories and advertorials placed in aspirational titles like Living Etc, Homes and Gardens and Grand Designs.

Some of the best known brands fail to promote their best assets effectively. Understanding the brand and understanding the consumer is only the starting point for a marketing programme. Distilling the offering down to one or two key brand messages is key to ensuring ongoing success in today’s highly competitive marketplace.

---

You can leave a comment.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.