For 95 years, La-Z-Boy has navigated highs and lows as a low-growth company with a low risk tolerance and heavy cost controls. Once the pandemic sales surge slowed, accelerated growth was still possible, but the CEO reasoned it would require a new approach.
With La-Z-Boy approaching its 100th anniversary in 2027, the CEO established the Century Vision: grow at three times the market rate and achieve double-digit operating margins by 2027 by delighting a wider consumer base with the brand’s comfort and motion benefits.
In recent years, La-Z-Boy has relied on the equity of a celebrity (Kristen Bell) and an unconvincing focus on style. Perhaps even more troubling, over time the brand had become a spectator in its own story, existing mostly in consumers’ memories rather than in the present.
Our mission is two-fold:
Flying in airplanes can be a high-altitude hellscape. It’s one of those rare situations where the sticky, lizard-brain, animal part of being a human comes into near-constant conflict with the polite, social norms-following part of being a human.
And if you think those degrees of recline don’t matter—consider how just this September a couple was banned for life after a “seat etiquette spat.” Another recent example of choosing violence with 3.8 million views, here.
La-Z-Boy is close to clocking 100 years of leadership in the comfort arena, so why not take up the mantel to stop the madness? And, time the effort ahead of what AAA projected as record Thanksgiving travel—with 5.84 million people flying domestically for the holiday.
The brand did its homework, commissioning a custom study with Haris Poll that found 41% of American adults would support a ban on passengers reclining their seats on domestic flights.
That’s why La-Z-Boy called on people to sign a pledge to ban reclining on airplanes at BanReclining.com, with a chance to win free La-Z-Boy recliners and $500 flight vouchers.
A series of social vignettes and influencer collaborations (with the likes of Passenger Shaming) boosted the pledge call for friendlier in-sky seat etiquette. Paid media activations took place in Time Square and throughout concourses at major travel hubs: Ronald Regan, Washington National Airport, Detroit Metropolitan Airport and the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (in-terminal Wi-Fi pre-roll and digital signage).
Unprompted, Beige Cardigan asked their 4 million Instagram followers to debate seat preferences—and things took off from there:
This category is all about consumers responding to a call to action. La-Z-Boy asked for pledges and 400,000+ did so (over their holiday breaks, might we add).
