The Design Network to Launch in January

October 16, 2012  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in Retail Technology on October 17, 2012

The first-ever crowd-sourced video network dedicated to home furnishings is coming to screens near you--or on your person--when The Design Network makes its debut Jan. 7 at thedesignnetwork.com.

Furnitureland South executives Jason and Jeff Harris have teamed with Lance Hanish and Klaus Paulsen of integrated marketing specialist CNA Sophis, and Nancy Glass of Nancy Glass Productions to introduce The Design Network, a revolutionary concept for creating an all-screens network "multiverse" that will provide entertainment, instruction and awareness of quality video content showcasing design for the home. Those screens include mobile devices, tablets, laptops and computers, and broadband television technology. TDN also will include an app.

The new venture is a separate company from Furnitureland South, formed through the investment of the Harris brothers. Jason Harris, TDN CEO and founder, Hanish and Paulsen have spent Market week hosting some 50 vendors for presentations at Furnitureland South, and Harris said TDN gained advertising commitments during those conversations. The network will have no retail advertising.

Videos will come from designers, architects, home enthusiasts--and furniture vendors--to offer inspirational, instructional and entertaining video content formatted to the highest quality standards. By offering on-demand content in a new, relevant and fresh way, and reaching "her" through a multitude of screens, anywhere she is, at any time and in any place, The Design Network looks to help make the home furnishings industry a dynamic leader in entertainment and technology.

Harris expects TDN will flourish as a self-sustaining business through "pre-roll" advertising preceding videos, but his vision for The Design Network includes the entire industry. He got the idea last May when he attended a Federal Reserve-sponsored furniture industry roundtable at High Point University. The moderator, former Furniture Today Publisher Joe Carroll, asked the question: "What's the biggest problem in business you face today?"

Responses included things along the lines of, "Competition is fierce--if I could make a $1,000 sofa for $800 I'd be fine"; problems with quality, communication and lead times sourcing from Asia; a rotten economy.

"There's something we've been leaving out--'her,'" Harris said. "It came my turn to answer--we're doing value, selection and service better than ever before. What is the problem? We're not reaching 'her', our target audience.

"She's more into fashion, apparel, entertainment, travel and tourism. She doesn't even know the brands in the furniture industry. (High Point Market) is Groundhog Day in the furniture industry, and we'll do it again in six months. The pie is shrinking, because we left her out of our thinking. She looks at what we do as a disposable commodity."

TDN, he added, is an opportunity for vendors to reach out to consumers with the same impact they bring to their market showrooms--by the time their story reaches retail floors, it's been diluted. The network aims to bring buy-ready consumers into furniture stores.

The idea is to to use videos engage "her"--the mobile-savvy consumer who's at home in an interconnected network of screens for socializing, shopping, information gathering and more--in a conversation that inspires her to consider how home furnishings and decor can make her life better, and give her a style of her own; and to reach her on any screen, any time, anywhere.

"This is an exciting time for the home furnishings industry to speak directly to 'her,'" Harris said. "I have always believed in the power of video as the ultimate way to inspire and share. It brings movement, depth and life to the home.

"By providing women a continuum of video personalized to their interests, styles and preferences, we will give 'her' options to explore featured home furnishings products to engage and to learn more."

To get it done, TDN engaged Glass, whose company's current cable shows include "My Design Life," "Dangerous Grounds," "Tanked," "My Dog Ate What?," "Extreme Poodles," "Good Better Best," "Race to the Bottom of the Earth," "Fix This Yard," and "RV 2013"; Hanish, a longtime proponent of the power of mobile technology and a leader in furniture advertising and other sectors; and Paulsen, a Danish veteran of digital media and communications, whose worked with brands that include Ikea, Nokia, Apple and Lego.

Harris, Hanish and Paulsen "decided to get in our own virtual cave and work on the concept of The Design Network," Harris said, before sharing their idea with 50 vendors they considered leaders in style and product innovation.

"It transcends technology, that is putting 'her' at the center of this thing, and it has to be about content and stories," Harris said.

Hanish said that 'she' is "wide awake, and the reason is she's grown up with this." "This" being an interconnected world of access to news, the Internet, and just about all information through mobile technology.

TDN is a business, but Hanish believes the Harris' investment vision could be a boon for the entire industry: "This is the most selfless act I've seen in the industry, and I've been around a while. We have a platform to go and reach her directly. We now have the capabilities not just for talking to her, we have to speak with her."

TDN isn't the first effort to engage consumers in a way that benefits the entire industry. Homeyet.com, has provided product information, education, retailer referrals, and promoted the month of September as "Home Furnishings Month," with associated promotions among participating retailers. That content, though, was largely industry driven, and TDN has a crowd-sourcing aspect that looks to generate the same sort of buzz and viral activity found on YouTube or Hulu.

Consumers who create a profile on TDN will be able to start a conversation about the videos they see, find out how a product's made; and based on their profile and usage of the network, allow the "curators" to send videos their way more likely to strike a chord.

"This interactivity leads to this convergence--selling product," Hanish said.

Paulsen noted that technology will continue to change--"Technology's like cherry blossoms, they look so new and fresh, but in a couple of weeks they fall"--but the TDN concept is not about technology.

"It's about content, it's about great stories that transcend technology," he said. "It's not taking a big step ahead of her--if anything, it's keeping up with her."

While content will come from all over, the group behind TDN sees it in terms of a library, especially considering the amount of information available in the ethersphere.

"We need curators, custodians, we need a service that finds the right content for her," Paulsen said, adding that consumers get shouted at too much. "To reach her, we have to let her meet us. She is at the center of this multiverse of screens that surround her. €¦ (TDN's) 'library' recognizes her, and all those screens are windows into her library."

Harris noted that technology allows "story telling" at lightning speed.

"We designed TDM as a portal of stories and ideas, concepts if you will, under the umbrella of home decor," he said. "It's also a social network. €¦ We can develop an intelligent system that can be her 'design network' based on where she's from, her search preferences, serving shared content, videos that are trending, her style, her geography."

The network will cater content to the screens participants use--short clips for mobile devices, longer clips for laptops and tablets, and even longer segments for television screens.

The idea is to deliver advertisers an interested audience with a laser focus, an audience they themselves could learn from.

Content will come from not only professionally sourced video, but talented amateurs who have the equipment and production savvy to produce quality segments--"amateurs who need a break but can do the work," Harris said.

The team hopes advertisers will step up with compelling spots.

"We're looking to build a whole new way of advertising where it goes beyond communication and brings something of value," Paulsen said.

Nancy Glass Productions already is developing content for TDN.

"One of our videos will be a call to action from our spokesperson," Hanish said.

A marketing campaign to consumers is set to begin in December.

Harris didn't give specifics, but said TDN represents a major investment.

"It's one that will pay off when we reach 'her,'" he said. "The overall payoff is the pie growing, but we think it will be successful in itself."