-By Mike Beirne

Upscale building products are holding their own thanks to the affluent who are making over kitchens and bathrooms rather than taking their chances on buying a new home in this market.

Marketers are responding by shifting resources to the medium where they can best recreate the luxury experience: the Web.

While Electrolux is well into its campaign featuring Kelly Ripa, Sub-Zero and sibling company Wolf, a Madison, Wis.-based maker of high end refrigerators and cooking appliances, will roll out the rock stars of the design world.

This week's hard launch of KitchenInspiration.com, created in-house, features unpaid appearances by top-notch designers like Michael McDonough, James Drake and Anna Mesaikos. On the site, they talk about design trends—for instance, polished granite countertops are out and polished wood is in—going green, inspiration and themselves. E-mail blasts to a database with 800,000 consumers and 50,000 designers also will support. Measured media spending in the U.S. by both brands was $17 million last year (not including online), per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

"Real content is what our customers are going for, your average consumer can see through someone who is being compensated to push a product," said Christopher Parr, head of consumer marketing and interactive for Sub-Zero and Wolf. "I'd rather have a fleet of designers and chefs talking passionately about our products than having a celebrity who is getting paid."

In-Sink-Erator is shifting part of its budget—$2.3 million spent during 2007 in the U.S.—-from TV to online. The company will add more rich media and product demos to showcase the "Grind more, hear less" benefits of the Evolution garbage disposals. The company created the high-end brand two years ago to stand apart from its Badger roster of value products. Cramer-Krasselt, Milwaukee, handles.
 
"We're blessed in that home remodeling is a planned event that plays out over several months," said Dave MacNair, vp-marketing at In-Sink-Erator. "The trick is to reach out to the homeowners when they are in the early stages of planning and we can do that very well online."

Jacuzzi's sales of upscale whirlpool baths, hot tubs and spas are steady, and its ad account is up for review. The company is seeking to complement its online presence next year by bolstering the in-store touch-and-see experience when consumers visit retailers and dealers.

Michelle Cervantez, Jacuzzi's CMO, said, "In these times, if you're well established and a brand with some heritage that goes a long way for consumers to have peace of mind."

The high-end business is defying, for now, the slump in remodeling activity overall. That sector is expected to decline by an annual rate of 11.1% until the first quarter of 2009, per the latest report by Harvard's Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity.