True Textiles & Guilford of Maine

Finding the True path

True Textiles, is a really smart, successful, careful manufacturer, supplier and marketer of textiles. Despite being a top provider to Herman Miller, Haworth, HON, Maharam, Momentum, and other huge furniture companies, changes in their ownership – they were acquired, then spun off (puns are not beneath us) from flooring leader Interface – made for brand confusion in the marketplace. Were they True or Guilford of Maine (True’s open line fabrics brand), or were they still Interface (True’s former parent company)? Our early conversations with True Textiles could easily devolve into a helpless Who’s-on-First hunt for clarity.

True leadership engaged Peopledesign to help find a clear new direction for their brand. We began with customer research to sort out markets and their needs, along with brand measures of the key players in each market. We brought the findings in and together established a new strategic path, leading with the strong performance attributes of the Guilford of Maine brand.

 

Our first realization of the new direction was a showroom design for an industry event and advertising teasers. The buzz building worked. The media enjoyed the dramatically empty (in a hall of usually over-stimulating, over-stuffed spaces), museum-like showroom that invited and held three times the customer traffic of their usual spaces. The space even winning a design award from show judges for its ingenuity.

Read more about our work with True in our joint press release. And stay tuned!