Fine Furniture: Home Office Furniture
When considering fine furniture, particularly with respect to home office furniture, you are not thinking of small spaces with enough room for a table and a chair, and neither are you considering the cheap printed plastic-coated chipwood computer desks and screw-in legs. Fine furniture involves solid wood and carefully matched veneers, polished to a beautiful finish but with room for the modern paraphernalia of the modern office.Think of oak, walnut, cherry and myrtle veneers, carefully applied to a solid wood base with the natural wood patterns carefully matched, mixing form and function with old world design meeting the needs of the new world office. Stylish, yet functional and practical, offering a beautifully matched blend of the old and the new, fine home office furniture offers an office of which you can be proud.In the modern world, the home office is an essential part of the living space, but one where function tends to win over design when in fact there is no need for this competition. It is perfectly feasible to have a well designed home office with good leather furniture that is comfortable to sit on while carrying out your work. Your desk need not be a wobbly creation of plywood and spindly legs, but a work of art, crafted from solid hardwood with fine cherry veneers, set off with some classical decorative hardware.Beautiful leather furniture is always in fashion, never looking out of place amidst any form of fine furniture, and a solid wood veneered desk would not look right without a lovely leather upholstered chair to go with it. You could also have a library system installed along one wall, configured to suit your needs, including space not only for books, but also for a modern sound system or entertainment center.Your solid wood and veneered home office furniture can stand on a carpet of your choosing, or perhaps a wooden floor: not the thin laminates that many seem to use these days, but solid wood parquet blocks, put together just as you want them. If you are designing your home office with beautiful fine furniture then the furnishings and flooring should be of equal quality. In fact, many prefer their flooring to be parquet with a carpet square to reduce some of the noise that a wooden floor can cause, or even a carpet square with felt surround is popular with many people.You also have your curtain fabrics to think of and the wall covering, and these too should suit the design of your home office furniture. You have a massive range of each to choose from, and among your accessories are different designs of clocks, wall art and lighting such as a chandelier, reading light and table decorations. Alternatively, modern spotlights would not look out of place.When considering the design and layout of your home office furniture, it is generally advisable to have an expert come to your home and discuss it with you after seeing the space you have available. Experts can advise you on the best design of furniture to meet your personal needs regarding functionality, and also on the best type of lighting and soft furnishings. They will also be able to help with matching the wooden fine furniture with the wall and floor covering. Most good furniture stores will offer this service.When considering fine furniture, particularly fine home office furniture and leather furniture, you have to consider the quality of the pieces and their price. Naturally you want the best quality you can get at the price your willing to pay, and you will likely be surprised at just how affordable many excellent designs are.Before deciding on your home office furniture needs you should first take a note of the office equipment you have. Computer, printer, scanner and so on, telephone and perhaps filing cabinets. The filing cabinets can be veneered in wood similar to that used for the main furniture: the desk and book case or library units, for example. Printers and so on can be stored out of site and still remain functional, while you have a choice of telephone designs to suit the design of the office.Your paperwork can be stored in a traditional wooden bureau or in desk drawers and cupboards that can also be used as small filing systems. In fact, all of your needs can be integrated into your home office furniture design and layout. Leather furniture, such as sofa and chairs, is available should you need it and you have a wide range of fine furniture suitable for use in a traditional style of home office which is far superior to the chipboard and plastic used in most modern offices.
Brand Story and Iconic Brands
Branding is one area in marketing where there are a number of terms and nomenclatures doing the rounds. That some of these terms are interchangeable and some vague and abstract helps people propound them to their hearts content without fear of contradiction. But on the other hand they also create no small confusion in the minds of those who really want to understand them and use the concepts in some context or the other. The other aspect is that many concepts that are redundant are given preference and importance over those that would really help marketers work out practical brand building strategies.For example, I believe one of the main concepts in brand building, the Brand Story has not been given the importance it deserves. The Brand Story is something which is built using newsworthy background details of the brand that backs the brand promise and which is communicated to the pertinent stakeholders through different media consistently and regularly. Any news story is far better than an advertisement in improving the image of a company as it has more credibility with the target audience. Add to that the fact that stories have the power to subtly explain the brand values and brand promise that otherwise maybe very difficult to convey, it should be a favourite method of communication with all brand managers. But surprisingly it has been rarely used or not been used properly except by some PR agencies.Infosys and Walmart are two excellent examples of the power of the Brand Story. Through the legends of the founders Narayanamurthy and Sam Walton these companies have clearly been able to communicate the brand’s promise, essence and values to the general public. Believably, credibly, unlike through advertising. The perception gained out of the life, activities and behaviour of these people, which have been brought to the notice of the target audience has helped build the image of the respective companies and convert them into iconic brands. Narayanamurthy and Sam Walton maybe only one cog in the wheel of their respective companies, albeit an important one. But people believe that what they are, represent what their companies’ brand values are. Perception is everything in branding.Now, that brings us to the next area of brand building which has been relegated to the branding backwaters, so to speak. Cultural and social values. Matching the cultural and social values of the consumers and the brand is one of the key ingredients to successful branding. It is what brands like Kelloggs have been unable to do properly in India. They are presently tuned in only to the cosmopolitan culture of cities – especially like those of Mumbai and Bangalore- and would have to wait for a long period of time for the culture of rural India to change to get countrywide acceptance.To explain the impact of cultural and social values in more detail we will have to look at brand building and the role of ‘liking’ in the process. The reasoning behind the need for brand building is simple. If people like a brand they are generally willing to pay more money for buying the same. People are also likely to be more favourable to something or someone they like and forgive their odd mistake or deviant behaviour with affectionate indulgence, while they will give hell if someone they dislike does something which is not upto expectations or the required standards.It has been found in social situations that people stick with those they like and in turn they like those who are similar to themselves. What we can say in New Gen parlance are people with the same wavelength stick together.Extrapolating this into a marketing viewpoint brings us back to a confirmation of our original hypothesis – that matching the cultural values of the prospective customers and the brand is essential in creating liking and thereby building iconic brands.Now, the Brand Manager or the Ad Agency has the path clearly defined before them. Since credible, true stories create iconic brands they need to convert any news worthy event involving the brand or the company that manufactures it into a palatable story. A story that will make people like the brand or a story reported in such a way that it will influence their minds positively. Which is also according to or shows the brand’s and society’s cultural match.In any brand building activity consistency and perseverance is the key. The net result of such activity conducted over a period of time would be that over the years the consumer and other stakeholders start to sincerely believe that what they have is their type of brand, nay, their brand.