Mohawk has announced it is refreshing its flagship RevWood line to reflect recent enhancements made in the form of aesthetic and performance improvements. With the addition of WetProtect across RevWood Plus and RevWood Premier—and Signature Technology on its top-tier RevWood Premier offering—retailers have even more reasons to get consumers excited about the product and the category.
“With RevWood, Mohawk transformed laminated wood into one of the most successful categories in the industry,” said Seth Arnold, vice president of marketing, hard surface, Mohawk. “After eight years of innovation, it is time to reposition the product line.”
At the heart of this brand re-positioning is an updated promise and tagline, “The Beauty of Wood Without Compromise,” which combines what Mohawk has identified as the two most important purchase drivers: aesthetics and performance. The evolution of the tagline, according to David Moore, Mohawk’s senior product director, dovetails with the evolution of the product and category itself.
“When RevWood came to the market five or six years ago, it was promoted under this moniker of ‘Wood Without Compromise,’” he said. “That’s done really well for us and we enjoy that, but we really felt like there was an opportunity to be a little bit more specific about the things that are great about RevWood.”
To that end, the new positioning of RevWood hinges on three key areas or pillars—the first of which being the sustainability piece. According to Mohawk, RevWood is the first laminated wood flooring line to attain NALFA’s prestigious Platinum Level of LF-02 Sustainability Certification. “This is a third-party certification confirming the product’s carbon-negative footprint,” Moore explained. “In short, that means every square foot of RevWood consumes or encapsulates more carbon than it is created in the manufacturing process.”
The second pillar of the new brand positioning ties into the fact that RevWood is made in the USA. With a pair of production facilities in North Carolina, Mohawk said it can ensure the quality and availability retailers expect. “By producing locally there’s no need to be concerned about questionable materials that may be produced in areas where there’s forced labor,” Moore stated. “Nor are we waiting on a boat to be unloaded in the harbor and we’re not relying on container ships that are going through with the troubled Red Sea; we’re just a truck drive away. This gives us the ability to provide a much more stable supply chain.”
It’s a point that resonates with retailers like Gregory Johnson, president and owner of Johnson Carpet One Floor & Home, based in Goldsboro, N.C. “We have grown so much with Mohawk’s RevWood line; it is our go-to product in laminate,” he said. “It’s also great that it’s made in the USA and, even better, right here in North Carolina.”
It’s those homegrown attributes that are at the core of the ad campaign, “RevWood: An American Original,” that Mohawk officially launched last fall. “With this campaign we didn’t simply want to beat the ‘Made in America’ drum,” Arnold explained. “What we wanted to do was tell an American story about the craftsmanship and the quality of the product by listening to the retailers that promote the product and the people in the factory who make it.”
That two-fold approach, according to Mohawk, ties into the groundswell of American manufacturing pride coupled with the consciousness of the U.S. consumer. As Moore explained: “The campaign really touches on two very tangible needs in the marketplace. One is just the pride of being an American and being a consumer of products that are made in America with materials that are produced in America.”
Mohawk is offering its retail partners valuable marketing and promotional tools in support of the American Original campaign. Retailers have access to ready-to-use advertising in the Mohawk Ad Center along with Edge Local Advertising to increase leads and in-store traffic. Edge Omnify websites, exclusive to Mohawk Edge partners, will promote the campaign to help optimize retailers’ digital storefronts.
“We have a full component of digital assets that are avail- able to our cus- tomers through our Omnify and Omnify Plus platforms, as well as through our Edge local advertising to make it really easy for them to leverage those assets and then tell that story to their consumers,” Moore said. “It’s all about driving that messaging all the way through the supply chain down through our retail partners and then all the way to the consumer.”
Dealers like Daniella D’Antona, account manager for ProSource of Fort Myers, Fla., attested to the effectiveness of the marketing and lead-generation assets Mohawk provides in this regard.
“We appreciate all the tools Mohawk offers to help drive consumers into the store,” she said. “We’ve noticed more of our customers are asking for laminate products, and RevWood is an excellent product line in this category.”
Form and function
The third and final pillar of the repositioning strategy circles back to the primary attributes of what makes RevWood so appealing to consumers: long-lasting beauty and proven durability, according to Mohawk. “It all ties in to the performance benefits that our consumers love about RevWood—the resistance to scratching, denting, staining and fading along with our Wet Protect Warranty,” Moore said. “In addition to those really strong performance features, we’re able to offer truly beautiful visuals thanks to our Signature Technology. Tying all those pieces together is what drives the value.”
In order to strengthen that position and continue giving retailers and consumers what they’re clamoring for, Mohawk has updated its RevWood product offering across all four tiers. RevWood Premier, its highest tier, gets a new product line called Eden Springs, an elegant hickory visual. RevWood Plus gets two extensions, including medium-character, European white oak visuals in trendy colors. Mohawk is also bolstering its longer, wider platform via a new product, Lenox Park, measuring 81⁄2 inches wide x 81 inches long.
ProSource’s D’Antona said she likes the new product direction. “RevWood has an extensive color palette, and I’m extremely excited to have some wider, longer options. Our market has been trending toward wider, longer visuals, so I am glad to see additional Mohawk offerings in the RevWood Collection.”
