Sunbrella is the brand behind the Web-based marketing initiative called “Perspective”. Launched in April 2013, “Perspective” so far has resulted in three major components, each loosely organized under a geographic label.

The stories are primarily told through online video in a style that has become familiar to viewers of so-called “reality” television and the many real estate and design programs on HGTV. But while this may be Internet-only video, the production values are broadcast quality.

The first in this series, “Perspective” Atlanta, followed interior designer Alex Gaston as he remade a bare loft apartment using only Sunbrella fabrics.

“Perspective” New England encompasses three distinctly different projects: a beach house, a luxury yacht, and the restoration of a classic Airstream Argosy travel trailer.

“Perspective” New York turned five up-and-coming interior designers loose to create showcase spaces using nothing but Sunbrella fabrics.

Makers and sellers of casual furniture at this juncture may be wondering how Sunbrella’s “Perspective” campaign benefits them and their markets. Sunbrella is the acknowledged market leader in performance fabrics for casual furniture. How can yachts and Airstream trailers and trendy apartments affect the outdoor furniture business?

Other readers of Hearth & Home – such as architects, interior designers and landscape architects – may be less familiar with the many diverse markets served by Sunbrella.

The campaign’s mission, according to David Swers, the president of Glen Raven Custom Fabrics, is to reinforce the notion that Sunbrella’s fabrics shouldn’t be pigeonholed.

“Our goal is to say, with Sunbrella performance fabrics you can have a great lifestyle, whether it’s inside or outside,” says Swers.

In other words, one brand, many applications.

The sailing set expects to see Sunbrella fabrics used for a dodger (the three-sided enclosure that keeps spray and rain out of a sailboat’s cockpit). Owners of motor yachts and sportfishing boats often specify Sunbrella fabric for a bimini (the metal-framed canopy that provides shade for the skipper).

But sailors and boat builders don’t automatically think of Sunbrella to outfit the cushions and cabins of their vessels.

Similarly, interior designers may automatically look to high-performance fabrics for an Outdoor Room but be unaware that there are luxurious interior-grade fabrics with the same performance qualities.

The “Perspective” campaign’s integrated message and approach seeks to break down some of the silos that exist between markets and expand the mindsets of the professionals in those markets.

One way to do this is to introduce the brand to professionals in markets where Sunbrella isn’t as well known or where the product is typically relegated to limited uses.

Another avenue is to build brand awareness among consumers, who eventually will ask about Sunbrella in conversations with their interior designers and, yes, even their yacht builders.

“Perspective” tackles these challenges on all fronts.

L to R; Designer Alex Gaston, Lonny Co-Founder Michelle Adams, and Sunbrella Design & Creative Director Gina Wicker review Alex’s design for the loft.

A Loft in Atlanta

“Perspective” Atlanta’s eight video episodes hit the Web one by one, rolled out in succession to document designer Alex Gaston’s total re-do of a loft apartment. Gina Wicker, Sunbrella’s design and creative director, worked closely with the creative team at Glen Raven’s longtime marketing and advertising partner, Wray Ward, to conceive and execute the project.

One of the greatest lessons of that experience came early in the effort. The designer’s task was to source his fabrics locally in Atlanta, and that turned out to be a challenge.

“It was really eye-opening for us,” Wicker says. “To try to find Sunbrella on a retail floor for an indoor application is really tough.” Even though Sunbrella works with numerous high-fashion jobbers and provides yarn for specialty mills, such as Sunbury, finding the brand in an upholstery shop or a workroom or on a finished upholstered item wasn’t so easy.

“We just assume they know how to get our fabrics in,” she says, “and they don’t always.”

The team eventually found their way to interior furnishings dealers accustomed to doing custom orders, and an important part of the “Perspective” Atlanta series dealt with placing special orders, including “the amount of time that can take.”

“Perspective” in Context

The “Perspective” series makes for easy viewing. Most segments in the Atlanta series run for an easily digestible five or six minutes. The storylines flow naturally, and while the Sunbrella brand is integral to everything, the brand name itself is tastefully restrained. The designer has an easy on-camera presence, and the tone is upbeat and fun, right down to the theme music.

Any casual furniture manufacturer or retailer who has produced television ads or online videos instantly will recognize the effort and expense required to produce media of this quality.

It’s difficult to point to similar branding campaigns. The only one that comes to mind is BMW Films, a series of eight short films made in 2001-2002 and seen only online. All were thrillers (or extended ads, depending on your point of view) starring Clive Owens and directed by some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Other than Owens as the star, the one constant was a major role for a BMW automobile.

BMW Films were all about the brand. Just like Sunbrella’s “Perspective”.

Positioned to Be Found

Right now, someone is searching the Internet for ideas on how to rearrange the furniture in the family room. Someone else is Googling for information on how to control the morning glare that floods their East-facing kitchen. Another homeowner simply wants suggestions on how to choose furniture that will survive kids, dogs and life in general.

There’s a good chance that each of those searches will turn up a link to Sunbrella “Perspective”, especially the videos involving a Rhode Island beach house, one of three chapters in “Perspective” New England.

Gina Wicker.

Before developing the content and storylines, the “Perspective” team worked closely with Sunbrella’s search engine optimization (SEO) team to identify some of the top search terms related to housing and home décor. Topics included subjects that play to Sunbrella’s strengths, such as outdoor draperies and resistance to fading. Others, such as how to arrange furniture, weren’t so directly obvious. But to Wicker and the creative team, those search terms provided opportunities.

“We analyzed those problems that homeowners seemed to be having related to anything, not just Sunbrella,” Wicker says, “and then we positioned the beach house to solve those problems. The organic searches coming to those videos has been really, really good.”

Pitching aspects of the project to two shelter magazines further enhanced the campaign. An advertorial in Coastal Living covered remaking the family room and Outdoor Room, while an advertorial in Domino featured a remake of the children’s bedroom and play area. Each magazine pointed readers to the “Perspective” website.

Sunbrella does not sell direct to consumers, so there’s no way to correlate an uptick in website visits with a quarterly sales report. However, Wicker says, Glen Raven gets highly detailed daily reports on its website traffic and keeps a close eye on its brand awareness through regular consumer surveys.

Here it’s important to remember that Glen Raven historically takes the long view when investing in a brand such as Sunbrella, which was introduced in 1961 as an awning fabric. Outdoor furniture applications came in the early 1980s.

The daily reports tell Wicker:

• How many website visitors arrived following an organic search. (“Rearrange furniture,” for example).
• How many visitors arrived by clicking on a Sunbrella banner ad or other paid placement.
• How many were directed to the site by a URL in an advertorial or other print reference.

The criteria Wicker values most identifies newcomers, visitors who previously never have been to the Sunbrella website. This is determined by the visitor’s IP address, the unique identifier assigned to every computer and mobile device. If you visit the Sunbrella number, they’ve got your number. (And so does every other website you visit).

Newcomers regularly account for a high percentage of visitors, Wicker says. “I know how many of them have never been to our website before. They are new,” she says, “and we have numbers in the 80 to 90 percent range. And that’s the goal. It’s really hard to tie this year’s advertising to this year’s sales, because it builds on itself.”

Figures like that help contribute to a growing brand awareness, and a strengthening brand awareness ultimately yields strengthening sales.

Glen Raven is a privately held company and does not disclose financial information. But the company has never wavered in its commitment to building the brand. Even during the worst of the Great Recession, Wicker says, Glen Raven directed some of its revenues to marketing and advertising. Keeping the Sunbrella brand strong was that important.

Greg and Stacie Hall (at right) review design schemes with Kate Jackson in preparation for the makeover of the beach house for “Perspective” New England, a design project produced by Sunbrella fabrics.

Open to Possibilities

Like the Jaguar salesman who sold two cars to the shopper in tattered jeans, Wicker knows to never discount an inquiry about her products. One never knows where things might lead.

The phone call came from a guy involved in restoring a 1977 Airstream Argosy trailer. There’s not a huge amount of yardage involved in a single aluminum trailer, but the circumstances were interesting to Wicker.

The restoration was being performed by Morris Yachts, a Maine builder of luxury sailboats. The interior of the trailer was being finished with the same exacting standards and materials as a half-million-dollar yacht. Would Sunbrella like to collaborate?

Wicker soon found herself at the Morris Yachts shipyard in Maine, talking to the CEO.

He mentioned in passing that his shipyard wasn’t a Sunbrella customer, because a canvas shop typically supplies marine upholstery, sail covers and the like. Those items are a separate purchase negotiated by the boat’s new owner.

But the CEO, who has a marketing background, did offer an idea. While Morris Yachts usually builds boats to order, it was about to construct a special anniversary edition of its 36-foot model, the M36. Maybe Sunbrella would like to collaborate and outfit the vessel’s fabrics.

Why, yes. Of course.

The out-of-the-blue phone call led to what became a “Perspective” New England trilogy.

Nicknamed “Rhode Yacht” after the home state of its owner, “Transforming an Airstream” is a six-part series that follows the rehab of an American vacation icon and its return to the highway as an example of 21st century marketing for Sunbrella and other sponsoring vendors.

“Real Yacht” is a multi-part series about yachting and the New England maritime lifestyle. One segment chronicles the process of how marine designer Kate Gable Seremeth, long a fan of Sunbrella marine fabrics, is introduced to high-performance interior fabrics and how they transform her approach to marine design.

The beach house.

The third chapter in the New England trilogy looks at how Sunbrella products resolve a number of issues, indoors and out, at a beach house owned by a Rhode Island couple with two daughters. Coincidentally, the couple also own the Rhode Yacht and use it to promote their retail businesses.

The beach house project provides opportunities to bring in Sunbrella awnings, sheer drapes, new family room sofas in crisp white Sunbrella fabric, plus a remodel of the children’s bedroom and play area. Designer Kate Jackson, based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, managed the project and specified Kingsley-Bate furniture for one of the three outside areas. The furniture brand by chance gets a substantial plug in the video.

Don’t think that everything is scripted from the outset. In this storyline, the creative team from Wray Ward was inspired by the homeowners’ fun-loving, preteen daughters. The writers proposed a duel between the daughters, armed with ketchup, chocolate syrup and blueberry topping, and two lab-coated technicians from Sunbrella’s fabric plant in South Carolina.

Could the girls make a mess that would stump the Sunbrella cleanup pros?

The resulting video is campy fun and one of the most popular in the series. It illustrates that even the worst-looking messes on Sunbrella fabric (white, in this case) clean up with water and, if necessary, bleach.

Casual furniture dealers from around the country have requested copies of the video to play for shoppers, Wicker says. It’s one thing to tell a shopper that the fabric doesn’t stain. It’s another to see two cute girls spread blueberry goop and ketchup on pristine fabric, only to have it rinse away in seconds, leaving no trace.

L to R: “Perspective” New York designers Brian Paquette, Drew McGukin, Alex Gaston, Kate Jackson and Brian Patrick Flynn.

New York, New York

“Perspective” New York, the third effort in the series, heads in a different direction. Five up-and-coming interior designers, all chosen for their style as well as their abilities with social media, were given carte blanche to outfit a room roughly 12-by-12. The only limitations were to use Sunbrella fabrics exclusively.

The five rooms were predesigned and constructed in a ground-floor event space, the former carriage house of an Astor family mansion. The designers contributed their time but reaped the benefits when the rooms were showcased for invited architects, other designers, and the press.

The five designers were eager to participate, Wicker says, “because they want to be a part of the brand, and they understand the power of social media. They are trying to build their personal brand, and they are in sync with that.”

“Perspective” New York spawned a handful of videos plus other Web pages on topics ranging from minimalist design to layering fabrics to a cocktail recipe for “The Sunbrella Sparkler.”

Miami Art

New “Perspective” topics are likely to pop up at any time. A recent addition looks at an art installation staged during Art Basel, the contemporary and modern art show, in Miami in December.

Artist Lucio Micheletti wrapped the trunks of palm trees in brilliant blue Sunbrella fabric “as a figurative bandage of environmental concern, in the hopes of stimulating a new sensibility and ecological understanding.”

Palm trees in Miami wrapped in Sunbrella fabric.

The installation coincided with an Architectural Digest event at The James Royal Palm hotel that featured a variety of Sunbrella products, coordinated by designer Thom Filicia.

Both projects were up for just a few days, but they continue to interest and inspire an online audience, always building the brand.

Where will “Perspective” go next?

Expect to see a “Perspective” chapter originate on the West Coast, and expect it to stand apart as a unique project. One rule guiding the “Perspective” series is to stay fresh.

There will be at least one more maritime “Perspective”. The story of how Sunbrella came to be involved in it is another example of Wicker always being open to possibilities.

She was in the Rhode Yacht (the Sunbrella-outfitted Airstream) at the Annapolis boat show when a young woman of college age stopped by. The young woman asked lots of questions about fabric, saying she and her husband were buying a boat. It’s a tale Wicker hears frequently, though usually from somewhat older prospects. When the young woman left, Wicker didn’t expect to see her again.

But the next day the young woman returned with her equally young husband. They asked more fabric questions. Can Sunbrella get fabric to Taiwan, where the boat is under construction?

Yes, Wicker said, realizing that she wasn’t dealing with Sunfish or Boston Whaler customers.

Their boat, to be delivered in the spring, is a performance racing yacht, a 56-foot Hylas.

It will be fully outfitted in Sunbrella fabrics when it travels the East Coast during the 2015-2016 racing season. It will be the Hylas show boat at the Newport, Annapolis and Miami boat shows.

Wicker still shakes her head at the thought of it. An opportunity like that defies planning, but every now and then, serendipity walks into the Airstream and sits down at the table.

Serendipity may not know the Sunbrella name or story; she just knows that the fabric has the right look, has the right hand, and will be right for the yacht or the children’s room or the sofa.

“We get hung up in our brand sometimes,” Wicker says, “and we want to walk into a showroom and have Sunbrella logos everywhere. I get more gratification out of somebody finding our fabric, choosing it because it’s beautiful, and then finding out it’s Sunbrella and being shocked.

“To me, that’s the ultimate, and that’s the kind of thing that’s happening with this ‘Perspective’ project.”

“Perspective” – it’s all about building the brand.

To view “Perspective” videos go to: perspective.sunbrella.com.