How Do You Sell a $ 50,000 Sofa?

I write a lot of posts for mainstream marketing and Realtors, but I work with many other unique challenges. One of my clients, David Christopher Furniture Collection, had an interesting marketing dilemma; how do you bring a $ 50,000 sofa to market. Especially if it is called Phat-J!

Front and Rear Views. Note the circular
champagne bucket. Click for larger image.

David Christopher has been designing his collection of contemporary furniture over the past three years and it now includes more than 15 pieces. The signature piece is Phat-J and it currently graces many living rooms, in spite of the price tag, but one of the most popular pieces is called J-Sofa. It has been featured in many magazines, but the most famous marketing coup of all was having it featured at the launch party of Trump World Magazine…and even cooler was getting The Donald and George to pose for a picture.

The first ad in Trump World magazine had to put the company on the map and there was a lot of pressure to create a high impact ad that would capture the attention of the target market. We used J-Sofa for the first ad as it was more photogenic. The story behind the ad was that a successful, middle-aged businessman had invited a woman for dinner, but as you can see from the shoes, J-Sofa convinced her to pass on dinner and stay home…for dessert.

We tried the ad with a black background and the white and ended up publishing the black background. By the way, that is the back of my head. We needed a guy with grey hair and middle-aged and my back is my best side so I was perfect.