What! No Stone For You?

December 4, 2002

VERONA, Italy – The next time you’re in line somewhere, think about this: There’s probably one person ahead who can’t stand what you do.
Nothing personal, unless you happen to be wearing a “People Are Just Dirt” T-shirt. It’s just that some people don’t like stone, and wouldn’t have an ounce of it in their home, natural, engineered or otherwise.
“Hey, that’s their opinion,” would be a likely response to the thought that somebody wouldn’t be caught dead with a stone countertop. “I’m alright with that.”
Maybe you shouldn’t leave it at that. Let’s not get into fisticuffs at the multiplex over the benefits of a nice granite island in the kitchen, but take a few minutes to consider the people who don’t want to be your customers.
With stone riding a monster wave of popularity, it sounds pretty silly for fabricators to worry about people who aren’t placing orders. For stone quarriers, however, keeping volume up becomes more important as prices go down, and priming consumer demand can be a boon to sales.
It’s something of a concern, for example, around the famed Italian marble-producing area of Verona, where the stone industry is in the midst of what some locals call a slump, and the downturn isn’t fully attributable to the aftereffects of Sept. 11.
So, just in time for the 2002 Marmomacc trade fair in October, the event’s producers and a public-opinion-research firm polled some 4,800 Italians about marble. While Italians and Americans may differ on a number of theories on style – the concept of yielding while driving, for example – ideas about marble may not be all that different.
Close to one in five people surveyed, for example, agreed with the following statement: I don’t like marble. And, that’s an average; when talking to people who actually had marble installed in their home, the dislike factor came in from 14.3 percent of respondents.
That number’s a bit more-significant than you might think, given the total number of people polled who cited that they had marble somewhere in the house. In the U.S., you might be lucky to find 10-percent to 15-percent penetration of marble into the entire market; with the Italian survey, marble owners made up 56 percent of the tally.
We’re also talking about people who claim more than a marble-top end table or a small cutting board in the kitchen. In significant numbers, the marble in Italian houses included bathroom and kitchen countertops, plus flooring throughout the house.
So why don’t they like marble? The study took a roundabout approach to this, but the answer came through in the end for those who didn’t have it: They thought it would cost too much. More than half said they’d use marble if it was less expensive. Other answers noted that those without marble saw it as a high-class product that wasn’t in their league.
And those who already have it, and don’t like it? The easiest answer would be about care, but only 11 percent of marble owners surveyed felt that marble was “demanding.” Given that marble lasts a very long time – and a significant amount of Italian housing can be dated in centuries, not decades – there’s a likely perception that it’s just old.
A smattering of interviews with Italian architects and designers, done as part of the survey, didn’t do much for marble, either. At least some noted that they liked granite better for hard-wear areas, but most eschewed stone because of its “cold” or “mausoleum” look.
Of course, if those same architects and designers were asked to name the most-influential building of the last century, the odds-on favorite would likely be Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavilion. Most people remember the simplicity, openness and elegance of the design, but the major building component was … marble (with a hefty shot of travertine as well).
We’re dealing with an Italian survey here, but the main theme of perception often works on this side of the Atlantic. Designers see stone as impersonal and somewhat morbid, and may not have exposure to the large gamut of colors or innovative uses in homes and commercial buildings.
Consumers, meanwhile, may reject marble and other stone out of hand because they think they can’t afford it. It’s easy for people to convince themselves they don’t like something because it’s probably out of their price range; the truth can change their minds quickly.
Changing a perception is a slow process, whether it’s through exhibitions at builder shows, speaking with local contractor or designer groups, or getting that interesting job featured in local and national publications. However, it’s also the smart move.
It seems ridiculous to chase unwilling customers when the job sheet’s full. With more competitors and products entering the market on an almost daily basis, however, the business flow will certainly slow in the near future. Changing somebody’s mind about stone now may keep the phones ringing and the shop busy when the easy pickings aren’t so easy anymore.