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IHA’s blog features informative posts written to keep the housewares industry educated and informed about key strategic issues and IHA member services.

Discover Design: A Judge’s View of 2014 – Meet Terri Winter

Retailers and media looking for trend-setting, high-design products at the 2014 International Home + Housewares Show headed for Discover Design in South Building. The premier design destination at the Show, Discover Design hosted more than 100 exhibitors that presented distinctive products in the Tabletop, Gift and Home Décor categories. The Show also introduced 10 emerging…

Creating the Retail Identity

Martin Pegler, widely considered one of the world’s foremost experts on retail design and display, likes to say that to make a real impact, the retail store should be theater. With the panel of gia (Global Innovation Award) judges, who described the measures all 15 of this year’s retail winners took to accomplish that goal, Pegler said the winners have developed brand…

Why is That Stranger in My House? Ethnographic Research Techniques for Developing Successful New Products

Ethnographic research on consumer products amounts to cultural anthropology that revolves around why and how people use products in their homes. Ken Harris, owner of product research and design consulting firm Fred Sparks, has spent hundreds of hours in homes asking questions to research a new product or product hypothesis and has emerged with information that has helped…

Leatrice Eiseman Explores Color Trends, Previews 2015 Palettes at International Home + Housewares Show

Radiant Orchid is the Pantone Color of the Year, Leatrice (Lee) Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, told an audience today at the 2014 International Home + Housewares Show. “It’s a beautiful color,” Eiseman said. “The inspiration for it is a harmony of fuchsia and pink undertones, like a gorgeous sunset. It’s a hue that sparks the imagination.…

Lifestyle Guru Tom Mirabile Reveals the Top Housewares Trends for 2014

Housewares manufacturers need to adapt, inspire and motivate in order to have success with today’s ever changing consumer, IHA’s lifestyle trend forecaster Tom Mirabile said today at the 2014 International Home + Housewares Show. He explained how to do so during his early morning seminar, “Top Trends for 2014The New Normal: How to Survive and Thrive in our Erratic…

Five Minute Interview with Celebrity Chef Michelle Bernstein

Michelle Bernstein is always on the go. A former ballerina and James Beard Award winner, the Miami native is a successful restaurateur, celebrity chef, cookbook author, regular judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, and host of the PBS weekly series Check Please! She battled celebrity chef Bobby Flay with gusto on Iron Chef America and won. The Show caught up with her before her…

Designer + Kickstarter = Entrepreneur: How to Launch A Company with Kickstarter

One of the more dynamic and attention grabbing ways to develop and market new products today is Kickstarter, a web-based home that funds creative products including films, games, art, design, technology and, yes, housewares. Three entrepreneurs who raised funds on Kickstarter for their products – silicone baking sheets with the accent on design and functionality, an…

Two Fat Pigs in the Python

The Baby Boomers, the large population growth that began after World War II, has long been known as the “pig in the python”—an image depicting the pig (the huge, sharp population growth) swallowed by the python (the world) and moving through it gradually, having an enormous impact on consumer needs, preferences and spending. Now there’s another pig: Millennials. Put the two…

Win at Dreaming – Identifying Passion Points for Market Share Growth

Housewares suppliers today are trying to woo a unique aspirational society by developing passion points that are meaningful to each consumer generation and their retail experiences, said Susan Yashinsky of Sphere Trending. Due to the incredible boom in new technology, particularly smart phones and other digital communication, consumers went too far one way, “sleeping with…