A whole new spin on traditional wood flooring
By Reginald Tucker
A revolutionary engineered flooring product that combines the look and feel of authentic wood with the tenacity of laminate. That’s how Mohawk Industries describes its new RevWood and RevWood Plus lines—a pair of collections tailored for consumers who desire the aesthetics real hardwood offers without the hefty price tag associated with high-end wood or the limitations associated with even the most durable wood flooring products.
In essence, RevWood is billed as a revolutionary wood flooring (hence the “Rev” in “RevWood”) that’s built to withstand the rigors of today’s active households. The product, which features a laminate decorative layer bonded to an HDF engineered core, is designed to resist stains, scratches and dents while still rendering a realistic hardwood visual. While RevWood does not usher in an entirely new flooring category unto its own, the positioning of the product is intended to challenge typical consumer notions of how they perceive traditional laminate flooring products and engineered hardwood flooring.
Back in early 2017, Mohawk conducted extensive consumer research—including targeted focus groups and surveys—to determine how shoppers discern the differences between the various hard surface flooring products available today. The company also wanted to find out what factors consumers consider when making their final selections.
“Specifically, we wanted to know what they thought about wood, vinyl and laminate products,” said Angela Duke, director of brand marketing, Mohawk. “We learned from consumers that their shopping experience can be very complex and frustrating. Our main goal is to make shopping for flooring very easy and simple to understand, and that’s precisely what we’re doing with the launch of RevWood and RevWood Plus.”
Consumers who participated in Mohawk’s focus groups reviewed samples of laminate, vinyl and wood planks, and they were asked how they would categorize each product. The results, according to Duke, were enlightening. “In the consumers’ minds, they put a natural divide between vinyl and wood—there’s really no middle ground here. But when they
looked at the solid wood, engineered wood and laminated wood samples, consumers put them all in the same group.”
Based on those findings, Mohawk saw an opportunity—and seized it. “We capitalized on what we learned, and that led to the creation of the RevWood and RevWood Plus brands,” Duke explained. “We know consumers understand there’s prestige in hardwood, but they also have a hard time justifying paying a lot of money for a solid hardwood floor—nature’s ‘gold’ standard. It represents the highest quality in the mind of the consumers, but it’s also the highest cost. But wood is not as durable or scratch resistant as laminate, so consumers don’t get all the benefits.”
Making the mental leap from laminate to hardwood—from what a consumer might call “fake wood flooring” to what might be called “hardwood floor alternatives“—was not as difficult for Mohawk customers, Duke argues, because of the way Mohawk’s laminate products are constructed. “Our laminate products are mostly made up of wood,” she noted. “It wasn’t a big challenge for us to put laminate and engineered wood in the same category because the consumer automatically did that for us.”