Supporting Mankind

Tarkett wanted to become the brand that architects, civil engineers, and interior designers think of first, not because of product specs, but because of what the brand stands for. The brief was to build a global action plan for 2016 that would drive top-of-mind awareness among prescribers and position Tarkett as a category leader through inspiration.

I developed the global brand positioning, wrote the manifesto, designed the campaign architecture across multiple touchpoints, and created the print campaign concept. All of this was rooted in a single strategic reframe: flooring isn't a product category. It's the invisible foundation beneath every step that moves humanity forward.

An invisible category. Flooring is like air, used infinitely without being noticed. For prescribers, it's a spec to fill, not a brand to love. Tarkett needed to make the invisible feel essential.

A concept that didn't land yet. "The ultimate flooring experience" was the brand's ambition, but it lived as a claim, not a belief. It needed to become something people could feel, remember, and associate with Tarkett instinctively.

Multiple audiences, one idea. Architects think differently from civil engineers. Interior designers have different references from procurement. The positioning had to be universal enough to travel and specific enough to resonate.

The starting point: God is in the details. I began with Mies van der Rohe's principle and applied it to flooring: the ground we walk on carries more history than we realise. A single square metre of surface can be the stage for a moment that changes everything. Tarkett's hidden superpower isn't the floor itself; it's what the floor makes possible.

The proof: iconic moments, reduced to a surface. To make this abstract idea tangible, I anchored the strategy in four culturally loaded moments. Each one was stripped down to its most physical element: the ground beneath the step.

• Ernie Davis: a patch of artificial grass trampled by the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. The field wasn't just a playing surface. It was where racial discrimination was confronted and rewritten.
• Usain Bolt: a lane of tartan track beneath the fastest human performance ever recorded. History measured in fractions of a second and metres.
• Steve Jobs: a carpeted stage where a product reveal changed how humans relate to technology. The Macintosh didn't just launch from a computer. It launched from a floor.
• Michael Jordan: one square foot of varnished wood pressed before the jump shot that sealed 72 regular-season wins. The record still stands.

These weren't celebrity references. They were strategic proof points: evidence that the platform could travel across eras, industries, and audiences while staying instantly understood.

The positioning: Supporting Mankind. From these proof points, the brand idea crystallised: Tarkett exists to support the conditions behind the steps that move humanity forward. Not product-as-hero. Progress-as-hero. Tarkett as the enabling foundation.

I structured the positioning using the Golden Circle:

• Why: We believe in mankind. We believe every small step can become a giant leap, and we exist to support the conditions that make it happen.
• How: We provide the best conditions through innovative products, intelligent design, and proximity service.
• What: We make floors at global scale, for the many activities of human life.

WE BELIEVE IN MAN, WE BELIEVE IN MANKIND WE BELIEVE THAT WE WERE BLESSED BY THE LAW OF GRAVITY WE BELIEVE IN THE GENIUS OF SOME FOR THE HAPPINESS OF ALL WE BELIEVE THAT WE ARE THE BASIS THAT ALL SMALL STEPS NEED TO BECOME GIANT WE BELIEVE THAT WHAT WE DO IS A SOLID BASE FOR MAN'S STEPS THAT MAKE HUMANITY LEAP FORWARD WE EVEN BELIEVE IN THE CRAZY IDEA THAT WE'RE NOT JUST THAT WE SIMPLY BELIEVE

Campaign Architecture: A Four-Step Journey. The campaign was designed as a progressive sequence, each step building on the last:

Step 01: Direct Mail / Invitation. A premium physical piece designed to inspire prescribers through Tarkett's DNA and reason to exist. It doubled as an invitation to the Tarkett Share event, seeding curiosity with historical revelations that would only be fully disclosed at the event itself.

Step 02: Tarkett Share - One Step Ahead. An event concept built to own expertise and future-thinking. The format explored industry trends and disruptive forces through futuristic keynotes with strong technology components. This positioned Tarkett as the brand that leads the conversation, not just participates in it.

Step 03: Print Campaign. A global, modular campaign system based on a simple mechanism with high recall: iconic breakthroughs frozen in time by a lens. Moments that changed the world were reframed through the surface beneath them. Each execution connected a historic "frame in time" to the Tarkett floor that supported it. Not product shots. Human progress shots with Tarkett as the literal foundation.

Step 04: Ecosystem Presence. Strategic presence at events like the Lisbon Architecture Triennial, replicating the mechanisms from the Tarkett Share event in the environments where prescribers form opinions and discover brands.

The positioning transformed Tarkett from a flooring manufacturer into a brand with a cultural point of view, one that could inspire prescribers and resonate beyond the sector itself.

"Supporting Mankind" gave Tarkett a global narrative platform flexible enough to power campaigns, events, content, and ecosystem actions under a single belief system. The print campaign created a distinctive visual and conceptual territory in a category where most communication defaults to material close-ups and spec tables.

The approach proved that even in the most "invisible" categories, brand leadership comes from meaning, not from features.