Reaching Design Specifers - and Students! - in 2013

Why connect with designers and architects?

  • They want what you have:
    • Materials that are greener, tougher, easier to care for, design-consistent...and less costly.
  • Create pull-through demand from A&D specifiers:
    • Higher margins, fewer substitutions.
  • The materials used by A&D specifiers influence consumer perceptions and drive trends:
    • We are all “educated” by what we see in commercial spaces – restaurants, hotels, stores, airports, etc.
  • The best way to reach A&D specifiers is to go where they are.

We’re multiplying our exposure in 2013! Join us as we make over 200,000 direct impressions on the A&D community – in person, in print, and online:

  1. At major design exhibitions
  2. In a professional design magazine
  3. On web sites that serve only professional designers
  4. At high-profile design schools

 

So much for the "whys". Read on for the "hows"!

 

1. Materials Pavilions at Design Exhibitions

Our 2012 Materials Pavilions made direct impressions on over 2,000 architectural and design specifiers in 2012, and netted high-volume, high-margin orders for our sponsors.

The Materials Pavilions at GlobalShop, IIDEX and NeoCon put our products into the hands of design specifiers.

They love our educational, experiential approach. They tell us they look forward to it each year, that it's the first place they visit at these shows. Among visitors’ comments:

“Thank you!”

“It’s about time somebody did this.”

“I learn more here in 30 minutes than I can in three days wandering the show.”

The Pavilions have actually become such an attraction that other exhibitors are requesting to be located near us.

This intense interest has inspired the publishers of Interiors & Sources magazine – our partner for the NeoCon Materials Pavilion – to redouble their focus on materials with a regular bimonthly section in the magazine, special traveling exhibits for design schools, and a special online Materials Pavilion in partnership with TODL – the Trade Only Design Library. Read on!

 

2. Dedicated Editorial Section in Interiors & Sources Magazine

The key to helping A&D specifiers understand the real story behind our materials and the benefits they deliver is to – once again – to go to where they are.

We need to reinforce what they see and learn in the Pavilions by maintaining a consistent presence in a magazine they know and trust -Interiors & Sources.

Interiors & Sourcesis read monthly by 31,500 contract and commercial design professionals – subscribers who are audited and verified by the BPA.

Between the printed magazine and its Design Flash E-Newsletter, over 69,000 contacts are made each month.

By creating for these readers an editorial environment that repeatedly covers design innovations and projects that utilize our materials, we can:

  • Take control of your product story – for designers and consumers
  • Show off the best and most innovative uses of our materials
  • Explain and reinforce our “green” advantages
  • Create and place the CEU (continuing education unit) features that all A&D specifiers need to maintain their professional accreditation
  • Finally put our products onto the same playing field as other designer-specified material categories
  • Take advantage of formatted ad and advertorial designs in Interiors & Sources, saving you design and agency fees

Imagine – your materials in the same editorial environment as Herman Miller, Wolf Gordon wall covering, Interface flooring, or 3form panels.

This is where we need to be if we truly want to take control of our message to A&D specifiers. Plus, we’ll add your top customers to the I&S circulation.


3. Resource Library Modules for Design Schools

Plans are in the works to take the Materials Pavilion on the road, in the form of sample binder-based resource library modules to be installed in six select high-profile design schools. Material samples, technical information, project images and profiles, as well as PowerPoint presentations and educators’ scripts, will be part of the package, as will a custom-design fixture to house the binders.

Each sponsor will have their own binder. Sponsors are encouraged to list names of representatives who are available to give in-person expert presentations, and to work with student on special projects, design contests, etc., featuring their materials.

Design educators constantly tell us how desperate they are for updated material samples, relevant information for their students, and experts to present to their students.

Building relationships with students creates customers for life.

In their first jobs at design firms, newly graduated designers are often tasked with researching materials and managing the firm’s resource library, where they play a critical role in how projects are specified.

Each Materials Pavilion educational module will be promoted through the local chapters of professional A&D associations, and of course will be covered in Interiors & Sources  magazine. As a sponsor, you will be an integral part of this network.

Additional schools will be added each year. The modules will also be made available to local design firms.

 

4. TODL Exposure: the Online Trade-Only Resource Library

As a direct extension of the educational resource library module, Interiors & Sources and Material Intelligence are partnering with the Trade Only Resource Library website (TODL.com) to create on online version of the module.

This will multiply sponsors’ exposure to working A&D specifiers on a site that’s been their main online resource for the past 15 years.

TODLis the industry's only product-level design research library exclusively for trade professionals.

  • Hundreds of thousands of products for all types of projects
  • All in the same format for instant search and selection
  • Complete specification Information
  • No software to download
  • Stop wasting time getting the information you need to specify.
  • Free to qualified trade professionals