Kleber & Associates

06/11/2026

Function earns consideration. Feeling creates preference.

For decades, building product marketing has led with stronger, faster, more durable. Those claims still matter — they help architects specify with confidence, builders protect schedules and homeowners trust what's behind the wall.

Today, function is the price of entry. Emotional connection is where differentiation is formed.

Audiences don't simply specify a "product." They buy what helps make an experience possible. Morning light in the kitchen. A quieter room. A deck where the family gathers. Confidence that the home performs as promised.

Family. Security. Peace. Comfort. Those are the words audiences actually use to describe their living spaces. They're rarely the first words on a manufacturer's sell sheet — and that's where the opportunity sits.

And emotion is not just for homeowners. Contractors care about reputation. Architects need confidence. Builders want differentiation. Dealers care about trust and margin. Pride, relief, control, belonging — these are the reasons a product becomes preferred.

The strongest brands are aligning rational and emotional. Performance proof connected to the human outcome. Installation speed becomes a protected schedule. Documented durability becomes a stronger reputation. Energy performance becomes a home that simply feels better to live in.

Don't abandon the technical story.

Connect it to the emotional one.

Don’t abandon the technical story, connect it to the emotional one.

06/05/2026

Mid-year 2026 Report: the market hasn't stalled. It has shifted toward the brands ready to meet it.

Mortgage rates have eased. The NAR Affordability Index has climbed to 110.6, up from 101.4 a year ago. And demand continues — just in more selective, regional and Pro-driven ways than the last cycle.

For building product brands, that opens real opportunity.

The Pro channel is a bright spot. The Home Depot and Lowe's are both leaning further in, and acquisitions like SRS Distribution and GMS reinforce a deliberate move toward specialty distribution and project-driven demand.

The stay-put homeowner is investing in the home they already own. Rate-locked and equity-rich, they are upgrading kitchens, baths, roofs and outdoor living — every project an opportunity for brands tied to durability, comfort and ROI.

Digital is becoming a workflow advantage. Lowe's Mylow AI now handles more than a million customer inquiries a month, with conversion roughly 3x that of shoppers who don't use it. The Home Depot has rolled out an AI-powered Material List Builder for Pros. The brands making the next step easier are winning trust at the moment of decision.

And the market is becoming more local. The Midwest and Northeast are showing strength. Custom home building remains resilient. Segmentation is no longer a marketing exercise — it's a growth strategy.

The brands gaining traction in this market are investing more precisely. Showing up with clarity. With confidence. With something useful to say.

Demand continues. Not everywhere, or evenly. And not in the form we grew accustomed to during the last cycle.

06/03/2026

PGT Windows and Doors just rebranded for the second time in three years.

The first one worked. 40% sales growth. Doubled brand awareness. And a 60% acquisition premium when Miter bought the company a year later.

So why rebrand again?

The new identity leans into Miter's national scale and a more polished lifestyle narrative — "Engineered for Here," "Framing home in a new light."

It also quietly drops one word from the name: "Custom."

One word removed. Significant meaning lost.

In building products, "Custom" wasn't decorative. It signaled made-to-order, specification-grade product to the builders, architects and dealers who drive the majority of purchasing decisions in this category.

A visual refresh is the easy part. Preserving trust is the real test.

PGT Windows and Doors’ new identity. What happens when a highly regional, technically respected brand begins evolving?

05/22/2026

Some building product brands are growing.

Others — with bigger budgets and larger teams — are losing ground despite working harder than ever.

It isn't a lack of effort. The environment has changed.

Tighter budgets. Constricted timelines. AI reshaping discovery. Specifiers researching independently, before a manufacturer ever enters the conversation.

More activity. Harder work. And results that don't scale.

The pattern points to one root cause: misalignment between sales and marketing. And it's solved — or left unsolved — at the leadership level.

This week's edition unpacks why growth has become a system challenge, what misalignment quietly costs, and how leading companies are pulling ahead.



https://bit.ly/4nJp5i0

It isn’t a lack of effort, the environment has changed.

05/07/2026

AI search continues to get all the buzz on how buyers find products before they ever reach your website.

But AI is not the only growing way of search. Quietly… social media has become a search engine too.

Not something that is gaining traction. Rather, a new way to search that is already taking share from traditional search engines.

For Building Product Brands, that changes the visibility equation. Google is now one portion of a broader discovery ecosystem. And being indexed is no longer the same as being found.

This week's edition unpacks what social search rewards, why SEO and GEO can't stand alone, and how visibility ultimately becomes trust.

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Social media has quietly become a search engine. What that shift means for building product brands working to be found, trusted and chosen today.

04/29/2026

Apple transferred the CEO baton from Tim Cook to John Ternus. The story isn't just about succession, it's about transferring trust.

What Apple’s CEO Transition Says About Trust in Building Products



https://bit.ly/4cEbaGl

Trust isn’t relegated to a consumer product like a smart phone.

04/23/2026

Short-Form Video Strategy Tips for Building Product Brands

Short-form video has quietly become a pressure test for the rest of a brand's content.

04/15/2026

Want a Loyal Audience? Start Thinking Like a Franchise.

Brand loyalty doesn’t work the way it used to. Thinking like a Franchise may help.

Brand loyalty doesn’t work the way it used to. Thinking like a Franchise may help.

04/08/2026

What the Moonshot Still Teaches Building Product Brands

What an Inbox Can't Tell You…
Jobsite communication is one of the most underused competitive advantages in the channel.



https://bit.ly/4cx4Hg7

Jobsite communication is one of the most underused competitive advantages in the channel.

04/01/2026

Brand Differentiation Success For Challenger Brands

In crowded categories, the brands that win need not be the biggest.

In crowded categories, the brands that win need not be the biggest.