Inside Futon Life This Month:

• Cover Story: Polishing Our Image: NY Media Event
• Publisher's Forum: Whatever Happened to Pete & Dave?
• Retail Perspective: Three For One
• Back to Archive

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Cover Story

Polishing Our Image
- A New York Media Event

Backgrounder

When the Futon Association International hired Mona Meyer McGrath & Gavin (now Shandwick, Inc.) two years ago expectations for making futon a household word were high. The FAI Board saw an opportunity to hire a world class PR firm that was interested in futon furnishings and was also willing to work with tight budgets and a team of entrepreneurs who had full time commitments to their own businesses and only spare time for anything else. The first two years of the program have been a major success. We saw stories on futon furniture in hundreds of newspapers across the country and even several stories in national consumer magazines like Better Homes, Woman's Day, Woman's Day Decorating Ideas, Bedrooms and Baths (published by Country Decorating Ideas) and Home. All told, the program's first two years garnered over 33.3 million impressions. With this increased attention pushing the visibility envelope open, the trade media also gave futon furniture a closer look. This year major stories on the industry appeared in both HFN and Furniture Today.

Of course all this attention wasn't due to the PR effort alone. Sales of futon furniture, now a legitimate home furnishings category, have made a quantum leap in the last three years. Sales within the category's supply side have seen twenty to forty percent growth during this time. Mass merchants now carry the category and traditional home furnishings stores are beginning to see the light too. All this activity has helped make the category more visible.

Key Messages

Futon specialists and waterbed stores have known for some time that futon furniture is a winner, offering real value to consumers looking for an alternative to the traditional sofa bed. But all this growth has come with its own set of problems. Many new retailers have taken a low-end, promotional approach to the category, an approach this publication and many industry leaders see as destructive to long term viability. The issue of the day is, "How do we keep the curve moving up and at the same time convince consumers that futon furniture is high in quality and value?," and for the Association, "How do we get direct impact for our members in a world where all boats rise with the tide?"

The answer to both questions is public or media relations. PR firms use their contacts with editors (the people who write newspaper and magazine stories and articles) to get the word out for their clients. Even the best story and article writers need news and trend information from the industries they cover. The PR firm helps them get that information. Being writers themselves, the PR account people understand what the editors are going through. The symbiotic nature of the relationship helps wed the client's story to the editor's need to inform and educate subscribers of their publication.

These editors are a very busy lot. Deadlines are a constant, in an industry where news is hot for an hour and trends are born and then die a few months later. The editors, with limited time in a very busy world, use the PR firms as a source for hot news and information. The better and more reliable the PR firm the better the chance for a working relationship with an editor. Since a multitude of consumer magazine offices are in Manhattan it seemed logical to go there for a media reception. But why PR anyway?

Mixed Messages

As an association of manufacturers and retailers, all desiring to see their cumulative and individual sales rise, the focus of the FAI marketing plan had to be able to meet the needs of every member. Most of the money in the PR budget comes directly or indirectly from manufacturers. Most of the manufacturers are looking to do business with more and more retailers. Most of the manufacturers' money comes from retailers (not all of whom are members). Member retailers, on the other hand, are less than excited about any plan that focuses spending on recruiting more retailers. If the plan could reach consumers and drive them into member stores then the retailers would be able to justify supporting the plan. The program would obviously also work for member manufacturers.

The Event

New York is a unique place. The media, including print and broadcast, are here like no other place on earth. When I arrive the day before the event the photographer is already at work, shooting rooms that appear for a day and then vanish into boxes. Stylists add those touches that make the rooms look as if they are actually lived in. Twenty or more editors are scheduled to arrive the following morning for breakfast and a look at the world of futons, a world that looks like it could fit very well into any home, on any street, in anytown USA. They arrive mid-morning, they eat, they talk, they sit, they look, they write. Their questions tell us volumes about how they perceive this product. They are surprised at what they see. We would like more of them to understand how multi-faceted this category really is. They want press kits and pictures. Three hours pass and it's over, the event that is.

The Follow-up

Follow-up is the biggest job of all. Kind of like cleaning up after Thanksgiving dinner. Contact with editors, both those who came and those who didn't, will continue for several weeks. Story angles may develop around several key product features. The PR people will get the editors the info they need. There are no guarantees, but with any luck, the editors will tell their readers to contact the Futon Association for more information. FAI will respond to these consumers with information and a list of member retailers in their state. Measuring the results of all this activity is not an exact science. One well placed story can start a flurry of inquiries and more press. The consumer is the key. If consumers see stories and pictures of futon furniture they can live with then they will buy. Controlling the message is our best bet for success at all levels. This was the goal of the event, and in that respect we have succeeded already.

It has always been the goal of this publication to show you, the home furnishings retailer, the multi-faceted versatility of futon furniture. We are also visible and active supporters of the long term goals of the FAI consumer PR initiative. Working on many levels with the Association has always been a part of what we are and what we do. As this product category becomes a main stream staple more of you will see the benefits of selling this comfortable, dual-purpose, bedding alternative. Membership in the Association is your logical next step. For more information on the benefits of joining call Tim Jacobs at 800-327-3262. For information on the May 1996 Futon EXPO in Providence, RI call Tambra Jones at 209-661-0249. &emdash; Editor.

Publisher's Forum

Whatever Happened to Pete and Dave

Ben and Jerry, Siskel and Ebert, Bert and Ernie, Dave and Pete, some partnerships just seem to work. During the past ten years I've had the privilege of doing business with some very creative and innovative people. Pete Dodge and Dave Chadbourn of Tilt Chair are two of those people. Dave and Pete started their company, Tilt Chair, in Pete's apartment on Cedar Street in the Riverside section of Minneapolis. They made wooden furniture, a few pieces at a time. As the futon mattress made its way onto the scene Dave and Pete saw and took advantage of a golden opportunity. With Pete's design sense and Dave's penchant for sales they took their small company to great heights. By 1992 they were one of the best known and most profitable futon frame makers in the country and had outgrown a third floor factory space on Stinson Boulevard in northeast Minneapolis.

"By 1993 we could no longer fill the demand for our products nor apply the kinds of finishes our customers needed," said Pete Dodge. Together they found a 50,000 square foot facility on Hiawatha Avenue that seemed perfect. They were also eligible for state aid that included funds to purchase the building and outfit it with the necessary equipment and fixtures. "The first year we were on Hiawatha Avenue," says Dodge, "we discovered that we had lost, for a variety of reasons, a substantial amount of money, and were no longer eligible to buy the building."

Like many small companies Tilt Chair, even with all its profitable years of business, was still cash poor. They relied upon a line of credit with their local bank.

"As renters our overhead soared," said Dodge. "and because we could not close on the building we could not buy the new equipment we needed to make our product competitive in an increasingly sophisticated market. Sales declined, overhead was up and we couldn't stop losing money."

By the spring of this year the company started to make a turnaround, but it was a classic case of too little too late. The bank called in Tilt's line of credit and on July 31st Tilt Chair of Minnesota closed its doors. The company is still in existence but is not doing business, and has no assets.

Even though Tilt is no more Dave and Pete are still making futon furniture. Pete Dodge has hooked up with Chet Stoler and Marty Biafora, and is doing consulting work at the new Casual Lifestyles plant in Billington, WV. You can reach Pete through Casual Lifestyles at 1-800-989-0998. Dave has started a new company called Welcome Home which is already shipping products to a limited clientele. Not willing to give up on a winning formula, Dave's products bear an interesting resemblance to the People Sleeper, the Cheapy Sleepy, the Northern Light and the Sled Bed. You can reach Dave at 1-612-722-9598.

Pete, who sent me a short letter describing the last two years, and Dave, via several telephone contacts, added their thanks to all their customers for the good years. I can only add my compliments, and those of our staff, to their efforts, and wish them both all the success life can offer.

Two Futon Specialists Go up Against The Big Guys
Casual Room Opens Classy 2,500 Square Foot Showroom

Saturday, July 15, marked the opening day for owners Skip Amberger and Clint Quinn of their new Casual Room showroom in Jacksonville, Florida. The Grand Opening was scheduled to coincide with a local mall event called "Home Furnishings Campaign" on September 25 through 30.

Located in the largest regional mall within the one million plus metro area, mall management estimates that some 40,000 folks a day make Regency Square their shopping destination. According to Amberger, President of Casual Room, "The traffic in the showroom is outstanding."

Working with showroom designer Bear Murphy, each futon group is arranged within a vignette, using drapes and valances to create faux windows. Then designer accessories (lamps, vases, wall discs, acrylic paintings, metal wall sculpture and table top pieces including leather covered animals) are added in that tie each set together with a finished room "designer" look. "There's something here to appeal to everybody," Amberger says.

Earmarking a large portion of their budget for decorative accessories, they constructed display shelves geared to feature over 450 cover swatches as well as decorative accessories: paintings, wall sculptures, large vases, lamps and occasional furniture such as tables, comforter racks, magazine racks, coat racks, clocks, etc.

"Presentation of the product using cross merchandising is key to this type of showroom," states Murphy. According to her, some retailers realize up to 60% of their gross sales in decorative accessories, and Casual Room owners saw that category as a way of capturing a larger sales volume in a shopping center where accessories of the style and quality they offer are scarce.

Quinn says, "Accessories have emotional appeal and don't require delivery and set up. They not only offer the consumer instant gratification, but also give them a reason to keep returning to the showroom to purchase additional accessories for their entire home."

Using covers from S.I.S. Enterprises, Omni Softgoods and Casual Lifestyles along with furniture from August Lotz, New West/From The Source, National Woodcraft, Rosalco, and BBI, each vignette was color and style coordinated, incorporating many custom pieces from the Spiral Collection. The Spiral Collection features such items as 40 inch wall discs, canvases, lamp bases and shades of tissue collage artwork to emulate the patterns, as well as lamps and vases partially wrapped with the same fabrics as the covers.

By offering custom pieces to coordinate with the 450 cover pattern choices, the Casual Room salespeople can assist consumers in creating a designer look without the need to pay designer fees. Inventory and re-order of decorative accessories are made easy by the fact that Murphy is not only a showroom designer, but also represents all the accessories companies and can assist the salespeople in special orders, as well as facilitating and following up on orders.

According to Amberger, "The metal wall sculpture is selling beyond all expectations, and buyers seem to be most interested in the high end." Murphy has been in the showroom specialty industry over twenty years and has won more than forty awards on behalf of her clients for outstanding advertising, exhibit and showroom design, packaging, point-of-purchase and product catalogs. She currently represents the following decorative accessory companies to the bedroom and futon markets: The Spiral Collection, Artisan House, Art Mates, Clay, Metal & Stone and The Rose Collection. She is looking to add another lamp line, ceramic sculpture along with silk florals and greenery to those lines.

For more information, contact: Butch Amberger or Clint Quinn at (904) 724-7277 or Bear Murphy at (602) 807-3243.

Surviving And Thriving , Rising Star Specializes in Quality

Bend, Ore. -- The story of Rising Star Futons reads like a condensed history of the American futon industry. Starting out as a part-time occupation, Rosamond Blok and her daughter, Leslie Blok, began making and selling futons out of Rosamond's home. They then moved into a combination showroom/factory in an old converted sawmill. Eventually Rising Star became a thriving company employing ten people who made and sold futons out of their own big, sunny showroom in Bend, and through some direct-mail customers nationwide. Rising Star also sold some wholesale products through other retailers.

Like the industry, Rising Star has survived many changes and challenges. Today -- like other futon retailers elsewhere in the country -- it's facing a new challenge: the arrival of "big-box" retailers offering deep discounts on futons and other home furnishings.

Bend, a popular resort town in central Oregon, has seen explosive growth in the past seven or eight years, which has lured in just about every major national and regional discount chain -- Costco, Wal-Mart, Shopko, Target and Fred Meyer, to name a few.

In the face of such competition, Rising Star has not merely held its own but has thrived, continuing to win new customers and increased sales. The main secret, say Leslie and marketing director Bill Kurtz, is a deceptively simple formula: create a strong identity and stick with it. For Rising Star, "identity" means a store that appeals to an upscale and environmentally conscious customer base. "We never thought of our market as just people who were looking for something cheap to sleep on," says Bill. "We saw our main competition as the traditional hide-a-bed, and our main competitors as furniture stores. We always designed our showrooms to display our futons as attractive pieces of furniture." To enhance the "fine furniture" image of their store, Leslie and Rosamond started offering a wide variety of designer futon covers and attractive hardwood frames, many of them built by Leslie's brother, Bill Blok, a frame manufacturer who also owns several futon stores in western Oregon.

Environmental consciousness is the other major ingredient of Rising Star's marketing mix. It's an approach that grew naturally out of the personal philosophy of Rosamond, Leslie and Bill. "We developed the WellSpring™ futon (stuffed with white, fluffy fibers derived from recycled two-liter plastic soda pop bottles) because we were looking for a good use for the recycled fiber," says Leslie. "But we also discovered a lot of customers were looking for something softer than the traditional cotton futon. The WellSpring™ quickly became our biggest seller."

Rising Star reached an agreement with the manufacturer to become exclusive distributor for WellSpring™ and several related certified recycled poly fibers. "The environmental theme is carried over throughout the store," Bill points out. "We offer all kinds of home furnishing items made from recycled and/or natural materials -- like our futon covers and pillows made from organically grown hemp fiber." Other products that carry out the theme include bent-willow furniture, floral arrangements of dried flowers and grasses, floor and ceiling lamps made out of "found" objects, and outdoor furniture made of a material derived from recycled plastic milk jugs.

Rising Star offers these additional tips for futon retailers facing today's marketing challenges:

1. INNOVATE. "We see our retail store as a laboratory," Leslie says. "We're always trying out new merchandise to see what customers will like or not like."

Rising Star has its own informal, in-house market research department. "Our ten employees are continuously taking prototype models home, and we also have a few customers who do this," Bill says. "We've been doing this for six years. We track the comments and continuously improve our products."

2. OFFER UNIQUE LOCAL PRODUCTS. Besides a wide variety of futons, Rising Star fills their showroom with furniture and home furnishing items -- many of them one-of-a-kind -- made by local and Pacific Northwest artisans.

"Our rule of thumb is, first buy local; second, buy Oregon, third, buy Northwest," Leslie says. "Virtually every community has local artisans and craftspersons who are turning out really nice things. Putting them in your store helps give it a distinctive personality -- and people know this is stuff they can't get at Wal-Mart."

3. TAKE ALL THE HELP YOU CAN GET. Your wholesalers should be able to supply you with advertising ideas and other helpful materials and advice. "We give extensive support to all retailers who buy futon mattresses from us," says Leslie, "including ad slicks, point-of-sale displays and advice with publicity. We also give them the benefit of our experience as retailers. If they call us with a problem, we try to help solve it."

Finally, but most importantly --

4. BE A FUTON SPECIALIST. "There are some stores that put two or three futons in a corner and say, 'That's our futon department'," says Bill. "You have to become THE futon experts in your market area. You have to know your product lines and be there to help when customers have questions or problems."

"The big discount chains will always be with us," Leslie concludes, "but there also will always be a place for the futon specialty store that offers distinctive products, an attractive atmosphere, and a friendly, knowledgeable, helpful staff."