Decor galore

How to move upmarket without disavowing one's multistyle positioning? That's the challenge Redcats Group's Home & Lifestyle brands are facing as they move forward in a fast changing world.

 

Yet, we don't change our sofa the way we change shirts, but that day may not be too far off. Lamps, dishes, small furniture and textiles obey trends which change with passing fashions. Today, furniture is no longer looked upon as family heirlooms to be handed down from one generation to the next, but as ephemeral things with which we have fun creating styles.

 

In a growing market, Redcats Group intends to play a prominent part. In La Redoute's new TV commercial, home decoration is a game. Two young women challenge each other to a duel which cuts between their two apartments. One’s new coffee table is a riposte to the other’s pretty designer lamp. The campaign signature: "you never stop playing with fashion". The game continues on Internet. In a Flash animated website, designers of home decoration and fabrics each have their quarters, little houses which entice us inside to decorate our own. Further on, can be discovered a “fashion for living in” with a choice of, “modern”, “past present”, “ethnic” or “authentic”.

 

As Emeric Toulemonde, VP Home & Lifestyle, La Redoute, explains, Internet is where the fight is played out: “in the home goods sector, online sales represent nearly 40% of revenue. But that is mainly due to BWG (brown-white-grey) rather than home fabrics or decoration. In these last two areas, we still have plenty of room to grow”.

 

Apart from its catalogue edition, AM.PM., La Redoute's specialist furniture and decoration brand, has its own mini website via laredoute.fr. This space offers a choice worthy of that of decoration magazines. Updates are fast, collections up to the minute.

So’ Home, specialising in home fabrics, has not got its own dedicated website yet, but it shouldn't be long before it has … La Redoute is the co-leader in the home fabrics market in France. So’ Home, with its more upmarket, refined positioning, completes the multistyle range offered by the general catalogue.
As regards La maison de Valerie, since January, the website has been offering a webcast called “all your decoration fancies”. Make the most of your bedsit, a room for living in, a taste for exotic - each month one subject is dealt with by an interior decorator. In the same time, home products used in the video are promoted.

In Scandinavia, Ellos brand – known for its fashion but also its decor collections – took part for the first time in Stockholm Home Trade Fair and launched a TV ad campaign, notably in order to promote its decoration selection. The range is completed by that of Jotex, its specialist decoration and home fabrics brand, whose website has just be redesigned and enriched with new functions. One can for instance get fabric samples delivered to one's home – very practical when choosing which curtains to order!