With the help of documentary style family portraits, Dorten convinced furniture producer Eisenberger to refocus their product portfolio back to “classic conservative” – a taste of furniture finish that stays true to the company’s loyal customer base.
Is itdifficult to tell a customer that a part of their product portfolio should better be scrapped for brand positioning reasons?
Sure it is. Eisenberger put a lot of thinking into their programme before we came and said: “Forget Nora and Kora, forget smooth and stylish surfaces and come back to the conservative look of glass showcases, bordures and brass fixtures.” Sure that’s hard, and Eisenberger could in reality of course not simply stop and change everything at once.
How where the reactions to the film portraits?
They were something to talk about! And you didn’t have to talk about the product while still talking about Eisenberger. How new are soft-close drawers and loudspeaker slots in a cupboard anyway? The films told stories of people, and everyone who saw them had an emotional opinion on what they saw. It was authentic in both directions. And the dealers were quite surprised. They suddenly remembered that their original target group was actually still alive and well!
What do you remember now when you think back at the filming of the couples?
I remember the Beckmanns – he says to her that he enjoys it when she sits there and reads, that she’s a bookworm and so on and she replies: “And you? You’re a TV-worm, aren’t you?”. I thought that was funny, and we got it all on film.
