Brooke Shields helps La-Z-Boy "Relax" its Image

Have you seen the new spots for La-Z-Boy with Brooke Shields?

This is one of those times when my reaction is mixed. Sure, I understand the strategy – get a classy, female celebrity spokesperson to counteract the “lazy man’s recliner” image of this well-known American brand (I can’t help thinking about Martin Crane’s duct tape-clad lounger on TV’s Frasier) and bring anti-recliner furniture shoppers into the galleries.

As Stuart Elliott points out in his NY Times piece about the campaign, La-Z-Boy and Santa Monica-based agency RPA (the brand’s agency since 2007) are trying to tell furniture shoppers that La-Z-Boy is not just for recliners anymore. Kind of like how Florida’s citrus growers famously told fans of orange juice that “it’s not just for breakfast anymore.”

The fact that La-Z-Boy is synonymous with “recliner” is a happy problem for a brand to have, I suppose, but the challenge here is to remind consumers that they make plenty of furniture that does not recline.

Now here’s the potential downside. Ms Shields has been so overexposed commercially – appearing in ads for Colgate toothpaste, Volkswagen and what seems like a hundred others, I’m wondering how effective this campaign will be.