Havertys' new ad campaign plays up customers' finer qualities

Clint Engel -- Furniture Today, February 8, 2012

ATLANTA — Havertys is launching a new advertising campaign this week that plays up its customers and their intelligence and personality as much as it does the retailer's furniture.

In a new Havertys TV ad, a young woman brings her custom-designed furniture to a speed dating session.

The new brand positioning campaign was developed with Kansas City, Mo.-based agency Bernstein-Rein.

In the campaign's first TV commercial, a young woman goes to a speed dating session accompanied by her Havertys furniture. In the humorous clip, she slides her custom-ordered chair into the room, introduces it to her date and boasts, "I designed it ... with my brain."

She mentions how it's a "perfect match," with her sofa, and the date responds by showing how the inside of his sports coat also perfectly matches the shirt he's wearing. Sparks fly.

"The idea behind the campaign is that the furniture reflects the creativity, vision and personality of the person who designed it, and Havertys is the key to bring that unique vision to life," the agency said in a release.

In addition to TV, the campaign will take place across digital and print, specifically direct mail and tabloid inserts in newspapers.

Bernstein-Rein won Havertys' business in July and undertook an extensive brand analysis, it said. The agency's new duties with the Top 100 company and Furniture/Today's 2011 Retailer of the Year include "strategic insight, customer analytics, creative, social media, digital and media buying and planning."

"This campaign is a dramatic shift from anything anyone in the furniture category has ever done," said Tom Curran, Havertys senior vice president of marketing. "While other furniture retailers focus solely on the furniture they have to sell, Havertys is putting the spotlight on our key customers."

The campaign was created using Bernstein-Rein's One Customer analytics tool that allows companies to delve deeper into their customers' mindset "to illuminate the truth of their customers' needs and how brands help solve those needs," the agency said.

The campaign launches this week in all of Havertys' markets.