Nourison, a manufacturer of floor coverings and home accents, announced in May it is rebranding as Nourison Home.

They company said the change aims to better align the company's strengths with evolving consumer needs and preferences. For more than 40 years, the company has used innovation to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market. Today, Nourison has one of the largest product catalogs and in-house inventories in the industry, offering a range of products including rugs, carpets, home accessories, bedding, lighting, and custom items.

To prepare for the next 40 years, Nourison conducted extensive consumer and product research while evaluating their strengths as a company. The result is a new brand that encapsulates Nourison's strengths while appealing to modern consumers.

“It’s not enough for us to just offer well-made products” said Andrew Peykar, president of Nourison. “It’s about that something extra, whether it’s richer texture, better materials, or design that offers more value to our customers. We are also focusing more on decreasing environmental impact and producing more sustainable products. Our products need to inspire joy and both look and feel good. That’s what Nourison Home is all about.”

To capture the essence of the company and its various product lines, the new brand adds "home" to the Nourison name. This addition adds depth and meaning. Home can mean many different things to people, such as comfort, self-expression, and security. Ultimately, home is a space that connects people with what they love.

We spoke with Giovanni Marra, vice president of marketing and creative, Nourison, about the rebranding and what it means for the company and its customers. 

Floor Trends: What prompted your consumer research?

Marra: The pandemic—this whole strange period of time has caused a lot of companies to reevaluate themselves to a degree. I think nobody would've predicted this, but our industry actually did pretty well because people were spending so much time on their homes and so much money and resources on upgrading their homes. But even with all that, it kind of forced us to be a little bit more efficient in our operations because there were all other challenges, obviously, going on with transportation and everything else.

We also had just hit our 40th birthday in 2020, too, so we were doing a lot of introspection. We thought about how does Nourison go on for another 40 years? The company is not the same as it was when it started in 1980. So much has changed, but really, the entire industry had changed, the consumer had changed. 

We started to really look into what were consumer buying trends now? How are things changing generationally? What should we do to help ensure our success for the next 40 years? It's a highly competitive industry and there's a lot of great people in the industry making beautiful product. It's not like it's that easy to stick out, so to speak. We looked at how do we differentiate ourselves? Where are we really good? What are our strengths? How do we really maximize those strengths? How do we try to resonate more with today's consumer?

I think a lot of businesses like us that sell through trade have learned that you can't always rely on your retail partners to do everything for you. You really do have to help create that pull-through, create that interest. 

Floor Trends: Is your business model changing? 

Marra: We have no intentions of going direct. We're going to continue to sell through trade and retail, but we wanted to be able to control that a bit more and really help educate consumers on what Nourison Home is all about and hopefully drive that pull-through. It's a much healthier sales process from us through our partner all the way out to the end consumer, and also try to get a little bit more connected with that end consumer. It's not enough to just sit back and just make product and hope it sells. It's definitely much more important to really understand what the marketplace really wants and develop products for that need and even for future needs. 

Floor Trends: What makes Nourison unique? 

Marra: We know we're not unique in our industry, but we are family owned. And it's still the same family that founded the company in 1980 who are still involved. It's multi-generational now: the original founders plus their sons, plus some of their grandkid kids, too. And they've always done a good job keeping the company a warm, family place where you can be you. We wanted to somehow communicate that warmth in our messaging, too.

We're also in an industry where we're producing products to help people beautify their homes. For someone to bring something into their home, they need to feel comfortable with it. They need to trust that this is a good product. A lot of people are much more conscious now of what they're putting in their baby rooms, and what their dogs are chewing on, and what are they surrounding their environments with. We felt that it was important for us to also be able to communicate that we are trying to do as much as we can to make sustainable products, put more natural fibers into our products, to make products that are higher quality so they'll last longer.

Floor Trends: Would you say the flooring industry is sometimes slow to change? 

Marra: Yes, and that's a good and a bad thing. The tradition of how our products are made is still alive and well in our manufacturing processes today. But at the same time, it's making things that have more value, or made more efficiently, can be priced more competitively, can have greater performance. All these things we wanted to, that we have been doing for more and more, I'd say the last five to 10 years. But we really wanted to put that into our messaging. 

There are a lot of things we had done as a company to stay current and to remain competitive, but we weren't doing the best job to really get getting that message out there. This rebranding is a bit of a reset—to rethink how we position ourselves, how we message to that and consumer. How do we message our retail partners too? Obviously, we need to make sure that retail partners want to sell our products in order to stay competitive and stay successful.

Floor Trends: And with that messaging, you've brought Kamryn Williams on board as your social media strategist. Williams has experience with fashion and beauty brands like Fashion Nova and Jeffree Star Cosmetics. 

Marra: Kamryn came on board really to help drive more of our social marketing and social communication. And she had done a great job at her fashion and beauty brands. We wanted to instill some of that into the work that we're doing here. There are a lot of parallels with fashion and interiors, but it's really being able to create visuals that provide both an achievable but also aspirational living space. 

Some people think we're too expensive, some people think we're too cheap. When we first started, we were really high end and now we have products at every price point going from $99 all the way up to tens of thousands of dollars—and everything in between. It's creating visuals that support all those price points, but also can be relatable, achievable and relevant. 

Floor Trends: Has your target consumer changed? 

Marra: I think we know more about our target consumer. Our core consumer is more Gen X and boomer, but more and more millennials and Gen Z are getting to know Nourison. Even though they might not be making the purchasing decisions, they're still driving a lot of the decisions and making and have a lot of influence. We thought it was important to tailor our messaging to really work with every generation. Everybody wants value. Even if you are a retired boomer and you're living well, you still want products that have that value. 

Floor Trends: Have your retail customers changed?

Marra: Our retail partners are more digital, so we're been creating a lot more digital tools, even just the visuals. We have two full-time photo studios. We have a photo studio in New Jersey and a photo studio in Georgia, and they're shooting year round. We're creating thousands and thousands of images a month on top of the videos that we're creating and other types of media. We need all that to really be able to merchandise properly and to really be able to communicate what we're about. 

Floor Trends: What's trending in area rugs? 

Marra: Definitely warmer tones—warmer neutrals, sands, taupes—and green seems to be picking up as well. Blue an ever-present trend in the U.S. We've always been really big on texture and all our products, so we continue to produce products even at the low end that have a really rich texture to them, whether it be a high-low weave or some other unique form of weaving the product to make it look a little bit more interesting and just a simple woven rug.