Mohawk puts its partnerships front & center
[Atlanta] While Mohawk has had longstanding partnerships with organizations such as Susan G. Komen and United Way, for example, it is leaning into its Culture of Care and creating opportunities for its customers to show support for people, places and social causes.
Although Mohawk has fostered this culture internally for quite some time, Kelli Widdifield, senior vice president of marketing, told FCW, “This is an opportunity to frame it up and create a common vocabulary.”
As well, here at its first Momentum Roadshow for the year, the company put a spotlight on new partnerships with organizations Plastic Bank and One Tree Planted that tie in with product launches PureTech and RevWood, respectively.
Indeed, Culture of Care, said Widdifield, “is now part of the decision making for product development and product design. It enters into every decision.”
Mohawk innovations, she said, will continue to align with this culture, particularly around sustainability. “We have a product roadmap ahead of us baked into sustainability elements. It is embedded in all that we do,” Widdifield shared.
Insights for Success
Mohawk has invested in proprietary consumer insights that the company revealed to retailers attending the education session that gave them tactics to succeed. The company also shared how its addressing these insights.
“Curation is a real need and simplifying the journey,” she said, adding that another insight is that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are mobile first. “How do you tell stories on that small of a screen?” posing another consideration for retailers as they build their online presence.
“[The insights] are driving everything we are doing going forward — our programs, marketing, products,” she reported. “What we learned is informing everything we do.”
To that end, the company has 11 new campaigns coming out. “Customer success is our focus,” Widdifield said, adding that there is focus too on finding a way for dealers to close leads.” Part of that, she added, is Omnify and Omnify +. “We are looking heavily at conversion tools.” That includes visualizers which she said drive conversion.
Kelli Widdifield reveals consumer trends and Mohawk’s responses to them. Overall global trends include Polycrisis Era, Nature as a Board Member and Synthetic Creativity. Mohawk’s design inspiration based on these trends are Comforting Past, Revitalizing Present and Reimagined Future.
Future Proofing Trends
Mohawk’s senior vice president of marketing Kelli Widdifield shared five trends that will help retailers attract the Millennial and Gen Z consumers, whose “purchasing power is substantial,” she said.
Millennials and Gen Z, she continued, are “multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-generational. Sustainability for them is table stakes. Sustainability factors into the decision making process so it is important for them to understand the position of products they are purchasing.”
- Be findable on mobile
- Lead with the heart, leverage sustainability and casual marketing
- Target NextGen with imagery and campaigns that reflect their reality
- Connect out-of-store to personalized in-store experience that brings design into the conversation
- Simplify their purchase journey with curated selections that answer to their unique needs