Flooring It Differently - Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home, Chicago

Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home, in Northbrook, IL, is a store that is Flooring It Differently through its advertising.

This is a big deal because many flooring stores don't advertise. If they do, they may not do it as consistently or with as much flair as this store does. A great deal of the flair has to do with Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home's VP of merchandising & marketing, Susie Axelrad.

In early May, Marianne Cone and I were in the Windy City to Come Decorate From The Floor Up With Thom Filicia. We decided we needed to spend time with Susie.

Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home believes strongly in advertising -- regardless of the economic climate -- doing it consistently and frequently with a recognizeable and consistent look. The examples you see here take our award winning By The Foot marketing campaign images and adapt them to the Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home format. Pretty eye-catching!

As Susie explained, advertising is what keeps the store top-of-mind with the local North Shore audience. It reminds consumers of the commitment that Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home has made to the community and the flooring business. It also reinforces the store's fashion focused and cutting edge image.

We agree that they don't look like everybody else!

According to Susie, if you're in the right magazine, it's a powerful medium because flooring is such a visual design oriented business.

Some of the publications that Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home has seen success with include NorthShore Magazine, Chicago Magazine, and Chicago Social (a Modern Luxury Publication).

Whereas the internet works particularly well as an educational tool, print works best as a promotional tool - to let consumers know that there is a reason to come visit the store.

Per Susie, "many retailers - when times are tough - react by cutting back on the important stuff: people, training and advertising. That is the wrong response! Advertising in good times and in bad communicates to your customer base that you are legitimate, serious about the business, and in it for the long haul. It also conveys a sense of who you are and what value you can offer the consumer. We are in the fashion business and that's what our ads convey."

This company has been in business since 1954 and now sells to the children and grandchildren of its original customers. It is well established in the community as a reputable fashion source. As it has diversified beyond carpet, it has worked hard to communicate that it represents a destination for all fashionable flooring needs.

Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home's approach is to use the same image across several periodicals in the same month thereby maximizing consumer awareness. The layout never varies; the images do. It plans advertising way ahead of time, sets a schedule and then plans product sales around its ad placements.

The Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home store exudes fashion. The outside windows each feature unexpected vignettes that combine flooring categories with other items that a homeowner typically considers when redoing a floor and a room. Within, more vignettes abound. As Susie explains, the in-store experience is critical. You had better deliver that well!

As we walked to the conference room, we saw on the wall several beautiful stylized carpet-clad wooden cutouts of women. They absolutely captured fashionability. Susie fondly explained that they dated back to earlier days, but that she treasures them and will always make sure there is a place for them. I wish I had taken a picture!

From a Wear-Dated perspective, it has been wonderful experiencing as creative an organization as Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home -- not to mention as talented a marketing professional as Susie Axelrad. She has amazing passion for promoting the flooring category as a fashion decision for discerning consumers.

Consequently, for Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home's commitment to communicating its fashion sense so consistently to the consumer via beautiful advertisements, in good times and in bad, I am thrilled to recognize it as Flooring It Differently.

Learn about other flooring stores that are Flooring It Differently.

Technorati Tags: Lewis Carpet One Floor & Home, Flooring It Differently, flooring/carpet, advertising, marketing, Wear-Dated, By The Foot