The Secret Sex Life of Juperana

   There’s one argument, though, that’s rarely mentioned. It’s also the simplest: Some people don’t like stone.
   Unfortunately, these are also the people you don’t see, because they dismiss stone as an option. They’re a group of customers that, until there’s good market research, can’t be quantified.
   And, should we care? These are people who say they don’t like our product. Fine. Let them go somewhere else.
   When those consumers – anybody from the fortysomething couple remodeling the kitchen to an architect working up the specs on a 1,000-room hotel – opt for another material for interior or exterior needs, those are lost sales. Perhaps you don’t mind money floating by the front door because business is great today, but the key to surviving is planning for tomorrow.
   Just because we can’t identify those stone-shy consumers, though, doesn’t mean that they’re unreachable. A good place to start is to go beyond the price barrier and consider some of the reasons – as dumb as they might sound to us in the industry – why people won’t buy stone.
   Let’s take a few minutes and toss a few objections out for consideration. Bear in mind that these are anecdotal, with research limited to non-scientific collections of opinions from sources as varied as cocktail-party chatter to conversations overheard at home-center showrooms. But, they’re all real.
   Stone is cold. As far as physical properties, this is something rooted in more than current consumer opinions. Through the ages, builders used stone to cool the surroundings; take a look at any Southern antebellum mansion, for example, and you’ll find stone topping all sorts of furniture and sideboards.
   Cooling off with today’s surfaces, however, usually involves ceramic tile. The cold nature of stone to end users today is one of being harsh; the idea of putting granite in a communal living area seems hard and impersonal.
   Mention “granite” to these folks, and the first thing they’ll think of is “Mount Rushmore” or “tombstone.” Stone may be immortal, but these folks aren’t thinking about the ages. They’re thinking about their kitchens and where they eat breakfast.
   Stone is bland. Granite is gray. Marble is chalky white. Slate is, well, slate-colored. And what’s this travertine stuff?
   Much of this comes from what I call the monument effect, which is why those four presidents on a South Dakota hillside or a graveyard still influence popular thoughts on stone. Simple ideas become ingrained (and no pun intended here) in attitudes that are hard to shake. If there’s no connection made with stone beyond famous edifices, it’s tough to even start selling the product.
   Don’t believe it? Consider an interesting nugget found by writer K. Schipper in her article about the monument industry: Black granite didn’t even appear on the radar for popular use in that trade (and stone in general) until the construction of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington in 1982.
   Stone is luxury. The common thought is that end users think stone is too expensive, and yet those people objecting to price often have no idea about square-foot pricing. They don’t make a comparison with other surfacing products because they perceive stone’s cost as out of their range.
   Stone’s reputation as a high-end, premium material gives it an intrinsic appeal that would be the envy of other products. It travels in the same circles as fine art or yachts or Rolls-Royces, with a cachet that millions of marketing dollars couldn’t buy.
   That symbolic connection, however, doesn’t translate well in today’s fierce retail market with increasingly sophisticated offerings in solid surface, ceramic, porcelain slab and even custom concrete. It’s hard to marry the luxury and affordability concept these days with any product. (When’s the last time that you heard Miller High Life referred to as “the champagne of bottled beers”?)
   Yes, these objections sound silly to anyone who’s spent any time around stone. The problem is that we’re dealing with end users carrying around these notions in their heads. And, it’s not just Fred and Fae Homeowner, either, in judging by the love affair some architects (and architectural critics) have with the geometric banality of tilt-up concrete construction.
   It’s an area now being exploited – in a positive sense – by quartz-surface producers. It’s easy to decry the comparisons made with quarried stone products, but a good look at all the quartz offerings reveals colors and patterns that break the staid stereotypes people may have about stone in general. You can rail at length about all this “fake stuff,” but it’s an appeal that’s working in the marketplace.
   The work of the Natural Stone Council and the Marble Institute of America to expand stone’s appeal is a good start, but there also needs to be a grass-roots effort; you can’t expect end users to make the effort to find out about the amazing variety of colors and patterns now available. Stone is vibrant, even sexy in its appeal, but it’s got to go beyond the showroom.
   Are you exhibiting at local and regional home shows and construction/contractor events? Promoting through installations featured in home tours? Aggressively placing products in model homes for new developments? Working your materials into new mall construction and retail redevelopments? Partnering with other home-improvement businesses?
   In this market, you constantly need to warm up stone’s appeal and keep it hot, because being a sex symbol is tough work. Stone’s competitors are up to the challenge. You should be, too.

This article first appeared in the January 2005 print edition of Stone Business. ©2005 Western Business Media Inc.