The role of branding is growing in the furniture business
The forum on Transform or Die: Why Does Furniture Need Branding, New Buildings and Agile Technologies was held at EXPOCENTRE AO. It became another component of the extensive conference programme of the Mebel 2023 exhibition and attracted the attention of participants and visitors to the industry show with the crucial theme of branding for furniture companies in the current market conditions.
It is not enough to create a brand, it is necessary to make this brand move into the customer’s mind, emphasised in his opening speech the moderator of the Forum, Andrey Ovchinnikov, head of the Brandcore branding agency.
Valery Kormin, Creative Director at Brandcore agency, noted that when talking about branding, he does not talk about logos, names, creativity, ‘pictures’, design, and other external attributes of this concept, but about the content of the brand, about the strategy of working with it.
According to Yandex, at the end of this year about 28 million people in Russia were interested in the topic of furniture, with a quarter of them looking for specific brands. Three quarters are still looking for furniture categories: chairs, tables, mattresses, sofas, wardrobes, and kitchens, i.e. they have not yet decided on a brand, but they definitely want to decide on it. 77% of buyers, according to Yandex, who purchased furniture within six months, repeatedly turned either to a familiar shop or took a brand they already know. This proves once again that buyers need brands, but, according to Valery Kormin, there are unfortunately almost no brands on the furniture market.
“Large manufacturers have already realised that the manufacturer’s market is over,” the expert stated. “Now there is a lot of good furniture on the market and it is necessary to move towards brand development. The assortment of furniture on marketplaces has grown a lot, but there is mostly furniture that is “bargained for price”, marketplaces take away profit from manufacturers, and only brands can fight this.”
Valery Kormin gave a number of examples of the complexity of furniture selection by the buyer in conditions when most furniture companies exist for him in the category of noname. “People,” he noted, “when choosing a brand, want to buy safely, easily and without thinking, to spend less time on the purchase and in general not to think much about it. Buying a brand, people buy not the object itself, but, first of all, the embodiment of their dream of a better life, and as a confirmation of their own solvency. This is a very important feeling, and it is what most purchases are associated with. And the more expensive the segment, the more important this feeling is. When a person buys a brand, he chooses with his heart. He already trusts a certain manufacturer and, accordingly, the price is secondary in this case. A brand is a complete, unique, non-contradictory image of a better life that is formed in the consumer’s mind. This is what we need to create.”
The forum programme on Transform or Die: Why Does Furniture Need Branding, New Buildings and Agile Technologies was continued by other well-known industry experts. Irina Lebedeva, Head of Furniture Department at Samolet, spoke about new buildings with furniture as an additional sales channel for manufacturers. Nikita Medvedev, Head of Marketing at Harmony Furniture, shared his experience in achieving leadership in a product niche. Andrey Ovchinnikov, Head of the Brandcore agency, held a session on How to Make +25% of Sales in a Declining Market.
In general, the forum confirmed the interest of the professional audience of the furniture industry in branding as an effective technology that increases customer loyalty and sales.
Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO