Many individuals and industries have looked at the “Got Milk?” campaign with unabashed envy (remember the milk mustache?), and why not? It began in 1993 with a $23 million annual budget, ended in 2014, and was one of the top ad campaigns in the history of advertising.

In 1993-1994, the hearth industry came up with $2 million for a campaign in about 17 shelter magazines. The tag line was “Fire Works,” but the campaign didn’t – work, that is. It was more “Spilled Milk” than “Got Milk?”

Would it be possible for the hearth industry, or the patio furniture industry, or the barbecue industry to come up with that kind of money every year for a decade or two? Theoretically, yes; practically, no. It would be as tough as getting milk from a stone.

Instead, the way we (meaning the three industries) can best increase consumer awareness and make homeowners truly covet our products is to continue placing high-quality products – not the cheap stuff – in millions of homes every year.

That’s where the hearth industry made its greatest mistake decades ago, and it continues today. The greatest numbers of hearth units sold each year are fireplaces, primarily gas, and the largest channel is through new construction.

The sad fact is that through all the years, from the dawn of the new hearth industry around 1980 to today, the main products going into new construction have been the least expensive fireplaces the industry has to offer.

So when relatives, friends and neighbors come visiting, what do they see? They see a boring fireplace that doesn’t get them excited, and certainly doesn’t make them want one for their home. But consider this: If an average of 20 non-immediate-family members visited each new home that has a fireplace during that home’s first year (that’s very conservative), it would represent exposure to about 15 million people (20 X 750,000 homes).

Over the 35 years since 1980, the hearth industry could have reached, and impressed, 525 million people. But the industry is still not putting its best foot forward – not even close.

That’s what Roger Oxford, SVP of Strategic Accounts for Hearth & Home Technologies, is trying to change right now (see article Start Selling!).

That task is more difficult for the barbecue industry because it gets its largest number of unit sales through the Big Box stores, making the average price of a grill pathetically low, say around $200.

The patio furniture industry is in much better shape than either the hearth or barbecue industries. Millions of groups of high-quality furniture go out to homes every year through a large variety of channels: patio retailers, mainline furniture stores, designers, architects, landscape architects, Internet sellers and catalogs. Even product sold through Big Box stores is of very decent quality – for the most part.

It becomes a self-driving machine, where those 20 people going into the home every year leave with a desire to purchase patio furniture.

Got Furniture?