By Lissa Wyman

MOOMSDAY IS COMING. Anyone who lived in New York in the 1970s knows that line. It was part of a marketing campaign that remains the most masterful example of brand building I have ever seen in the floor covering business. Nope in the entire home furnishings business.

I was reminded of those golden days over the holiday weekend when I had a lively e-mail conversation with Tom Cammarata, a San Francisco Bay area advertising exec, who wanted to know the name of the original ad agency who handled the Einstein Moomjy account. "The ads were remarkable to and highly influential on young copywriters like me in the late '60s and '70s," he wrote.

This guy never had anything to do with the rug or the floor covering business, but he remembered the ad campaign. Is that genius, or what? No. It's GENIUS.

Although I didn't remember the name of the agency, I sure did remember the marketing campaign of the four Einstein-Moomjy partners: Ted Einstein, Ernst Einstein, Walter Moomjy and Albert Moomjy.

 "Branding" was not a word in our vocabularies at that time, but that's  exactly what the company did with the campaign. They created the first true brand in our business.

I have written about the genius of Einstein-Moomjy  in the past and I will write about in the future. It stands alone in a sea of pedestrian, forgettable, boring and ugly ads  that have come before and since. I am talking about  99% of the furniture, floor covering and rug stores in America and about 90% of retailers in general.

Let me just review with you what floor covering retailing was like in New York and every other city in the country 40 years ago. In New York, Allen's and Kaufman's where the huge chains that dominated the market with weekly -- maybe three times a week --full page ads in the tabloid papers.  All the ads contained about 20 postage-stamp sized pictures of carpeting with huge sale prices splashed over the headline. Every once in awhile, Dean's, a smaller New Jersey based chain, also put in their two cents with the same kind of ad.

The ads for all three of those companies were pretty much interchangeable. It wasn't so much that they offended my aesthetic sensibilities, they were just boring in the extreme. They certainly did not give me much confidence in the floor covering business.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the guys who ran those outfits. They just didn't know from branding or advertising. They have all gone down in flames, of course.

Meanwhile, Einstein Moomjy had full page ads in the New York Times. They didn't even have a store in New York until 1980! They didn't even advertise every week, because that publication then, as now, was extremely costly. The thing was Einstein Moomjy wanted to rise above the fray. They wanted higher end customers and had to make the most of their limited advertising dollars. In short, they wanted to make a memorable impression. They wanted the maximum bang for their buck.

It took a HUGE amount of guts to do what Einstein-Moomjy did. They succeeded in creating a brand like no one before or since.

I am not saying that we don't have any good advertising in our business. Of course, ABC Carpet & Home comes to mind and the retailer has done a masterful job of creating a brand. I just wish they would realize that it's not necessary to shout about 60% to 70% off every rug they advertise.

A few others come to mind: Jordan's in the Boston area. Rugs as Art in Sarasota. Nebraska Furniture Mart in the midwest. All great brand-builders.

It took my e-mail correspondent Tom Cammarata a couple days to find the name of the original Einstein-Moomjy  ad agency. It was Baron, Costello and Fine. He tracked it down by reaching Neill Drossman, whose agency Drossman Yustein Clowes had the account from 1990 to 1999 and was the third in line.

"Great account. Ted Einstein was brilliant," wrote Drossman. "The Moomjys were fun to work with. Always interesting. Prior to our having it, it was at Rosenfeld, where Carole Ann Fine and Harvey Baron worked on it and then started their own agency with the account. Einstein-Moomjy had no small influence on my career.Ted Einstein understood branding."

It is no secret that I am a huge fan of the elegant Ted Einstein. He was soft-spoken and had very kind eyes. He once sold my mother a houseful of carpet. She loved it and was so proud that her carpet came from Einstein-Moomjy.

I would love to hear about other retailers who are also branding geniuses. Please let me know.

E-mail me at lwyman@rugnews.com or use the comment box below.
 

7.4.11