A Talker Research survey from April revealed that 72% of Americans prefer a nice night at home over going out. And according to a TrustedHousesitters survey released in June, 56% of Gen-Zers admit to nixing vacation plans to stay home with their pets.
Does this surfeit of soilitudinarians constitute a readymade rabble of recliner buyers? Time will tell—but La-Z-Boy is positioning itself to appeal to them, if the current rebrand is any indication.
While relaxing at home has always been a prevailing theme in La-Z-Boy’s advertising, it was equally apparent that the product on offer was a piece of furniture—usually one reserved for dad after a long day at the office. What’s different now is the company’s intent to frame itself as a wellness product.
“Our strategy has shifted substantially to focus on comfort, expanding the reach of the Lazy Boy brand,” Hoskins said. “We’re a comfort brand and that is bigger than the furniture itself.”
To that end, everything from the new slogans (“Life’s better laid back,” “Tailored for your time off”) to the color palette (“misty midnight tones and earthly hues”) aims to convey tranquility and repose—just the sort of things that post-pandemic America is in the mood for anyway.
The centerpiece of the rebrand is La-Z-Boy’s new wordmark, which creative shop Colle McVoy returned to a cursive typeface in a way that evokes the 1927 original but is more curvaceous, with rounded corners and gentle contours meant to evoke the feeling of settling into a recliner.
Over the last two decades, “we’d lost touch with what we stand for as a brand, which is ultimately comfort,” said vice president and group design director Diana Quenomoen. “The evolved logo should be telegraphic. When I see it, I should see comfort. It should express and exude that emotive feeling.”
Apart from forcing Americans to loaf around at home, another feature of pandemic living that seems to have permanently re-coded the culture is removing the guilt from that loafing. And, here again, La-Z-Boy stands ready to accommodate.