Same chair. Three completely different readers.
Office Designs sold Herman Miller to facilities managers. Rooms in Style sold the same Eames lounge to somebody furnishing a living room. Sit4Less sold it to whoever wanted the best price. One warehouse, one writer, three voices to hold.
01The setup
The company ran three e-commerce brands and a retail showroom out of one building in Northbrook.
A facilities manager outfitting forty workstations and a person buying one Eames lounge for their den are not the same reader. One wants volume discounts, lead times, and a repair center. The other wants to know that Charles and Ray Eames designed it in 1956 and that it will outlast them.
I was the only copywriter. Three voices, held separately, every day.
Office Designs was the first online retailer to carry the Herman Miller Aeron. By the time I got there they had been selling it for twenty years.
02The catalog
Printed, mailed, and written to run to business and consumer lists depending on the drop.
Cover to back: positioning, section openers, and product copy across thousands of products from Herman Miller, Steelcase, Haworth, Knoll, Emeco, Kartell, Humanscale, BDI, Vitra, and Blu Dot.
The headlines had to work for both readers at once. Make the essential exceptional. Task yourself accordingly. Problems? Solved. None of them mention a chair.
03The launch pages
Four in eighteen months. Steelcase Gesture, Herman Miller Mirra 2, Haworth Very, Humanscale.
Each one carried two stories at once. The manufacturer's, which had to survive their brand review. And the retailer's offer underneath it, which is what actually paid for the page.
The Gesture launch ran an entire posture study. Nine named postures, from The Draw to The Strunch, because Steelcase had observed 2,000 people across eleven countries and that was the reason to care about a chair.
04Consumer
Rooms in Style is where the writing loosened up.
Give Dad the Best Seat in the House. A Father's Day email for the Eames Lounge that closes on the designer's own words and his signature.
05Trade
A trifold for the International Facility Management Association.
Ten manufacturers on one panel, a service proposition underneath, and no room to be clever. Free FedEx shipping. A 365-day return policy. A 29-point inspection at the repair center. The kind of copy that has to be right rather than interesting.
All of it art directed by Amanda Mastenbrook. Four launch pages, a catalog, a trifold, and two years of email, working as a pair.