Paid

La-Z-Boy x Faker:

“Performance Starts in Seat”

Creative Brief

Who is the target audience?
  • Primary audience: Gen Z gamers, esports viewers and digital-native consumers (ages 18–27)
  • Spend significant time gaming, streaming, studying and creating in front of screens
  • Value:
    • Setup aesthetics
    • Comfort and quality
    • Self-expression and identity
  • View their desk or gaming setup as an extension of who they are
  • Secondary audience:
    • Gen Alpha gaming enthusiasts
    • Parents purchasing premium gaming or study furniture
  • Partnership with Faker (League of Legends esports player) strengthens relevance and credibility within gaming culture
Where will this ad appear?
  • Out-of-home (OOH):
    • Digital billboards near college campuses
    • Placements near esports arenas
    • Ads in entertainment districts
    • Transit shelters in youth-heavy markets (e.g., Los Angeles)
  • Print media:
    • Back cover of a gaming-focused publication (e.g., Game Informer)
  • Online / digital:
    • Gaming- and streaming-adjacent platforms
    • Instagram and TikTok
    • Digital display ads
    • Branded landing page
  • These placements align with environments where gaming, student life and digital culture intersect
What is the goal?
  • Increase awareness of La-Z-Boy’s new gaming chair
  • Reposition the brand for younger audiences
  • Improve brand image among Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers
  • Establish La-Z-Boy as a credible brand in performance seating
  • Connect comfort with performance, focus and endurance
  • Drive association between the brand and modern digital lifestyles
What is the current perception vs. desired perception?

Current perception

  • Trusted, heritage furniture brand
  • Known for:
    • Comfort
    • Quality
    • Craftsmanship
  • Often perceived as:
    • Traditional
    • Older-skewing
    • Tied to living-room furniture

Desired perception

  • Premium and modern brand
  • Relevant to gaming and setup culture
  • Seen as a performance-oriented seating brand
  • Connected to:
    • Digital lifestyles
    • Younger audiences
    • Long-session comfort and focus
  • Reframes heritage into a competitive advantage
Why do we need this ad?
  • La-Z-Boy is entering a new product and cultural space (gaming seating)
  • The brand currently lacks natural relevance in gaming culture Gamers heavily invest in:
    • Monitors
    • Keyboards
    • Headsets
    • Lighting
  • But often overlook seating, despite its impact on:
    • Focus
    • Endurance
    • Long-session experience
  • The ad helps:
    • Reposition the chair as part of performance, not just furniture
    • Show that comfort supports how users play, stay engaged and perform
  • Differentiates La-Z-Boy from competitors by emphasizing:
    • Nearly 100 years of comfort expertise
    • Craftsmanship and quality
  • Strengthens credibility through Faker, who represents:
    • Discipline
    • Consistency
    • Elite performance
  • Reinforces the core campaign idea: performance does not begin on the screen — it begins in the seat

Advertising Headline:

Performance Starts in Seat

Print Media Outlet

Back cover of Game Informer

OOH Placement

Digital billboards near college campuses, esports arenas and entertainment districts, along with transit shelter ads in high-traffic youth markets such as Los Angeles, especially near USC, Koreatown and Downtown LA.

Digital and Social Extensions

Digital display and video placements on gaming- and streaming-adjacent platforms, Instagram and TikTok launch assets, and a campaign landing page with branded website visuals.

Placement Rationale

Game Informer is a strong print placement because it reaches readers who are already highly engaged with gaming culture, gaming products and performance-driven setup upgrades. A back-cover placement gives La-Z-Boy premium visibility in an environment that feels native to the target audience, helping the brand appear credible in the gaming-chair category rather than as a traditional furniture company trying to follow a trend.

The OOH placements are designed to reach Gen Z consumers in spaces where gaming, creator culture, student life and digital entertainment naturally overlap. College-area placements help connect with students who spend long hours studying, streaming, gaming and building personal desk setups. Koreatown and Downtown Los Angeles add cultural relevance because they are dense, youth-oriented neighborhoods with strong ties to nightlife, transit traffic, entertainment and digital lifestyle communities. Billboards and transit shelter ads also create repeated exposure, making the campaign feel more visible, current and embedded in the audience’s everyday environment.

The digital and social placements extend that visibility into the platforms where this audience already spends time. Gaming- and streaming-adjacent ads help reinforce the campaign message in context, while Instagram and TikTok support shareability, launch momentum and visual storytelling around Faker, setup culture and chair aesthetics. Together, these placements allow the campaign to move across print, physical space and digital behavior in a way that supports both product awareness and broader brand repositioning.

Why This Headline Works

  • Reframes comfort as an active performance driver, not just a furniture feature
  • Connects naturally to gaming, streaming and digital lifestyle behavior
  • Feels more premium and credible than slang-heavy gaming copy
  • Builds on La-Z-Boy’s existing equity in comfort, quality and craftsmanship
  • Helps reposition the brand for younger audiences without losing its heritage
  • Works across OOH, digital, social and editorial-style campaign materials

Strategy Note

This paid media strategy is designed to do more than introduce a single new product. Its broader purpose is to reposition La-Z-Boy for a younger audience by linking the brand’s long-standing authority in comfort with a modern, performance-oriented lifestyle category. The assignment brief makes clear that the advertising headline/tagline should focus on the fabricated gaming-chair launch and appeal to Gen Z and Gen Alpha gaming enthusiasts. Rather than entering the market through trend-chasing language alone, this campaign differentiates La-Z-Boy by framing comfort as a serious competitive asset. That distinction matters in a crowded gaming-chair space where many brands compete visually but few can credibly claim deep expertise in long-term seating comfort.

The partnership with Faker adds strategic legitimacy to the message. He is not positioned merely as a celebrity face, but as a performance proof point whose discipline, consistency and endurance align with the campaign’s core idea. In this way, the paid campaign works on two levels at once: it builds launch awareness for the gaming chair and supports a larger brand evolution, showing that La-Z-Boy can extend its heritage into modern digital culture without losing the qualities that make the brand trusted in the first place.