Karastan unveils Sunwash ad blitz
By Cecile B. Corral -- Home Textiles Today, 3/5/2001
NEW YORK -On a sunbathed balcony of a 27th floor apartment overlooking the expanse of Central Park, Karastan officially unveiled its new Sunwash line of area rugs (see HTT's Feb. 5 issue) and gave media a glimpse of its new television ad campaign to promote the line, starting March 5.
"We are very excited about the Sunwash Collection, and we expect it to be a big success," said Phil Haney, senior vp, marketing and sales.
The 30-second ads will air through the end of the month on both network and cable TV. On network TV, Sunwash ads will be aired 10 times during the first two hours of NBC's "The Today Show" and four times during the third hour of the program.
On cable television, the Sunwash ads will be aired during several programs on HGTV; The Weather Channel; several news editions on CNN, as well as "Larry King Live," "Style" and "Pinnacle" and Headline News Network; and CNBC's and MSNBC's "The News with Brian Williams" program.
More than 100 retailers, including Federated Department Stores' Rich's, have already partnered with Karastan to produce some of the television commercials.
Concurrently, Karastan will also launch its print ad campaign for the Sunwash line in early March and extend it through November. Most of the campaign will be suspended in June and July on ad runs in Condé Nast's Architectural Digest and House & Garden; Hachette Filipacchi's Elle Décor; Hearst's House Beautiful; and six other publications. Only three publications- Martha Stewart Living, Veranda and HGTV Ideas Magazine -will include Karastan's Sunwash ads in their issues consistently throughout the nine months.
Haney declined to provide specific details about Karastan's 2001 advertisement budget campaign, only to note it was significant.
"What it's buying us is a total of more than 176 million consumer impressions," Haney said.
Karastan estimates the print campaign will capture an audience of 30 million and the TV campaign will capture 146.5 million.
The Sunwash line comprises four different area rugs, all designed differently.
Bakhtiyari features a series of panels that each contain a mystical motif depicting a "garden" theme, for example, the Tree of Life and crested peacocks. Royal Isfahan is based on a Persian design dating back to 1900. Palace Kirman is inspired from an old Floral Kirman design, and its border is inspired from a West Anatolian rug from the early 20th century. And the Antique Oushak rug, with its Turkish roots, borrows from a 1900s West Anatolian original.
All four rugs are made of 100 percent New Zealand wool.
