Star Power: Effective Celebrity Branding in Home Furnishings
“Solution” is the key word for the Kathy Ireland World Wide brand. Ireland has differentiated her home furnishings brand from others in the market by intensely focusing on her core message–”finding solutions for families, especially busy moms.”
Furniture that really meets a family’s needs–that’s a solution. Style guides that make coordinating a room simple–that’s a solution. Marketing plans that help busy retailers sell product effectively–that’s a solution.
Ireland accomplishes this focused approach by involving end-use consumers. She knows the consumers’ needs because she is constantly asking for and listening to specific consumer feedback.
“The most critical part of our design team is our customer,” Ireland said. “And she has been absolutely amazing….she’s very direct, and I love it. Like, ‘Kathy, I love this, but fix this over here–I need a solution.’ I believe we have had success from listening to our customer and implementing what she’s telling us to do. I can’t say it’s easy, but it’s a good challenge. It’s getting her wishes carried out. I mean, that’s my boss, so–I’ve got a tough boss!” Ireland laughs when she says this, but it’s clear that she takes these consumer ideas very seriously indeed.
The products that Kathy Ireland World Wide (KIWW) offers in the home furnishings market are perfect for the consumer because they’re what the consumer wants, and because Ireland, a busy wife and mom herself, is representative of the demographic to whom her products are marketed.
Kathy Ireland Home launched in 2001 through a partnership of KIWW with Standard Furniture. Now nine brand partners work with Ireland’s company and each other to offer coordinated home products. Standard produces case goods and leather. Martin makes home office and home theater furniture. Shaw offers floor coverings. Pacific Coast Lighting makes interior and exterior lighting. Alta offers window-covering solutions. Kamenstein produces tabletop items and serveware. Arrow Home Fashions manufactures top-of-the-bed products. LABS creates permanent florals. Hanna's candles, candle accessories and home fragrance products round out the broad, harmonized group.
Coordinating the look of products from so many partners would be a difficult job without the company’s style guides, which are an integral part of the company’s mission. “Our style guides are a solution,” Ireland said. “Today they include Aloha, Americana, Architectural, European Country, Far East Dreams, Russian Style and Ivory Coast. Women have shared with me they don’t really have an opportunity to travel to all the places they would like to. It’s really fun when you can give a room in your home a vacation. Whenever we can save a busy woman time, she loves that…If she wants to do a room in Aloha, and you have the silk botanicals permanent florals, the candle, the gardenia flower to tie it all together, she can do that.”
Pre-coordinated room components give many women peace of mind, knowing “she can’t make a mistake,” Ireland said. Consumers can mix and match across the different style collections as well. The goal is to make it easy for busy women to shop so that “she can find what she needs and she’s happy,” Ireland said. “She’s let me know what she really wants–she needs more time.”
Ireland is deeply involved in the whole product design process. “Our team…conducts focus groups on a regular basis. Children are part of those focus groups; if you’re serving families, that’s important,” she said. “We subscribe to the trend and color services, we travel the world, we collect raw materials that we want to see translated into product, and we sketch and photograph everything from fashion, color, architecture, lifestyle, and then myself and our creative director…edit it down to the style guides that we believe will best serve our customers.”
KIWW has a strong marketing strategy that involves showing their products to consumers directly as well as assisting retailers in marketing to consumers. The company’s website was not designed to be a selling tool, but it is effective at promoting brand recognition, acquainting consumers with the products and connecting consumers with local retailers. “On our website, kathyireland.com, I don’t sell anything, and I don’t plan to,” Ireland said. “We actually developed it as a thank you to our customer...for her loyalty to the brand. And I thought, this is a place we’ll give her information about fashion and home and family. But the information she gives us [in return] is amazing.”
The site is full of helpful articles about topics important to women. In an unobtrusive way, it also displays products from each design partner, links to the partners’ websites, offers a “find a local dealer” feature and illustrates the company’s style guides.
KIWW also helps furniture retailers market the Kathy Ireland Home products they carry. The company offers POP materials and develops commercials and other tools for retailers. Ireland hopes that retailers will use the materials from KIWW and “receive the benefits that a brand brings.”
Ireland herself enjoys talking to sales teams and telling them the stories behind the products. “When people understand the design background on a piece, then they’re more excited when they’re showing that information to the customers,” she said.
She also has some great ideas for merchandising showrooms. In the Standard showroom at the World Market Center, Sharri Green, Assistant Brand Manager at Standard, told FL&LS how involved Kathy was in helping with the setup and design. The furniture was presented in room vignettes, with rugs, bedding, top-of-the-bed, lighting and personal accessories. Some stand-out accessories were framed pictures of Kathy with her friends and family, books, handwritten notes (i.e. in the boy’s room vignette: “Johnny, you’re such a great son! Please remember to take out the trash before baseball practice. I love you, Dad,”) and clothes (such as pink rubber boots in the girls’ room). Dining tables were set with centerpieces, placemats, full place settings and real food (such as Cheerios in a cereal dish).
If you are a furniture retailer who would like to start carrying products from Kathy Ireland Home, here are some steps to take. “There are many different ways to go about [beginning to retail the products],” Ireland said, “whether they contact our brand partners directly or if they want to come to us. They can reach me on the website kathyireland.com. That’s a great way to get in touch with me, and we’ll get right back to them. Our mission statement is extended to retailers. If we can’t make it easy for the retailer to display, it’s never going to reach our customers, so we always keep in mind it’s also finding solutions for retailers.”
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