Thinking Outside The Store
When a retailer thinks outside the box it sometimes takes him outside the store. Brian Banks at LifeStyles Furniture in Moline is placing leather furniture at the Quad City International Airport for travelers to use. We like working with Brian because he lets us do some really fun work. Read the press release…
While many companies have used the backlit sign panels at their local airport to advertise their wares, LifeStyles Furniture, an internet retailer of furniture with a brick and mortar store and warehouse in Moline, Illinois, decided to place their actual products in the local airport for weary travelers to use.
“We offer some of the best furniture in the world,” explains Brian Banks, president of LifeStyles Furniture. “When people see the quality, they get hooked. As much as we want to bring people to our store, it also made sense to take the furniture to the people. We want people to experience the quality.”
One of the LifeStyles Lounges at the QC Airport. Click to see larger image.
Lifestyles has four “LifeStyle Lounges” at the Quad City International Airport in Moline, Illinois. Each one of the lounges includes Ekornes leather furniture, side tables, and promotional displays. In conjunction with the furniture are lighted wall displays, stand up displays and two of the four locations have LCD televisions showing video about the furniture and the store. In addition to the lounges, there are also kiosks with various furniture store messages, each emphasizing the uniqueness of the store’s offerings and free shipping to anywhere in the country.
The furniture is available for any airport traveler to use and although the Quad City International Airport has been recently updated and has newer seating for their traveling clientele, the standard seating fare is no match for the Ekornes sofas and chairs for comfort. Ekornes, based out of Norway, is considered one of the world’s leading brands for upscale furniture.
Cathie Rochau, Marketing Representative for the airport says they like the addition. “Our travelers absolutely love the comfortable “LifeStyles Lounges” located in the airport terminal. We constantly see passengers waiting in a very relaxed style for their flights–many times with their laptops open and their feet up. The lounges have been a fabulous addition to the airport and they are constantly being used.”
“After we began the program last year, we started getting letters from travelers thanking us for providing the furniture at the airport,” explains Mr. Banks. “It would be impossible to calculate exact sales numbers that are directly related to the airport displays, but suffice it to say I have increased our presence there based on our overall increased sales.” LifeStyles Furniture had record sales in 2009 and continues to improve its growth in 2010. Both LifeStylesFurniture.com and PlatformBeds.com are seeing continued growth as well as the retail store.
Welcome to the five Quad Cities. Click to see larger version.
The creative messaging for the displays was created by the Gunter Agency, based in New Glarus, Wisconsin. With headlines like “Comfort disclaimer: not responsible if you miss your flight” and “So this is what first class feels like,” the agency looked at the placement of the signage as a component of their creative message. Creative Director Randy Gunter explains more about the creative strategy, “from personal experience, I know that you can spend a fair amount of time at an airport just waiting. Obviously this was the motivation behind putting the furniture at the airport in the first place. But, more than that, our messaging used that thought process too. We purposely put in longer copy than we typically would in a display advertisement. We also made each kiosk say something different, with fun, quirky elements within the body copy. That way we would hope that once people see that the copy is fun and entertaining, and different on each display, they would go and read every single one because what else are you going to do at the airport?”
And how about the big lighted wall display that says “Welcome to the Five Quad Cities”? Mr. Gunter explains, “The Quad Cities is a misnomer in that there are actually five larger cities that make up the metropolitan area. So of course we had some fun with that thought. We’re hoping that travelers will find it intriguing enough to have their photo taken in front of the display.”
At a recent visit to the airport, Mr. Gunter noticed that every LifeStyles Lounge was occupied. “I talked to the travelers who were in the seats and they just raved about both the store for providing the furniture and the furniture itself for its comfort and innovative design. They especially liked the reclining chairs.”
“We’ve been extremely happy with the response that we’ve got from our airport marketing,” explains Mr. Banks about their innovative program. “I guess the next natural step is to see if we can get our furniture on some of the jets.”
Tags: Business Story
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 2nd, 2010 at 8:19 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.