The homes & interiors world can hardly move for all things Scandinavian, so we were delighted to be appointed by Swedish wood burning stove manufacturer, Contura, in July 2016.
We wanted to take Contura from being relatively unknown by the UK media and consumers, to being a lifestyle guru. And, that’s exactly what we did – most recently finding ourselves in the Houses of Parliament, rubbing shoulders with MPs and the great and good of the stove industry.
Our Contura comms journey began with firm foundations of product coverage in national and monthly luxury homes & interiors press. The comms kindling was soon alight, but we wanted to add more fuel to our PR fire (do you see what I did there?) with some campaigning and storytelling that could take Contura beyond the interiors pages and complement our hard-working press-office activities.
2016’s standout lifestyle trend was ‘hygge’ – which soon became ‘hygge-mania’ – as the press was bursting with images of cosy interiors, cashmere socks, hot drinks and roaring fires, with experts urging us to emulate our Scandinavians neighbours and get our fix of hygge.
We simply had to make Contura a part of the craze and knew the time was right accelerating our comms by adding a consumer campaign to our hard-working retainer activities.
With Christmas party season approaching, we seized on news that alongside hygge, the term JOMO (Joy of Missing Out) was one of the top 10 words of the year, so we were quick to connect the two by researching who and where the combined forces of hygge and JOMO were at their strongest in the UK.
Relevant, timely, newsworthy and based in consumer insight, our story, which showed how Brits were embracing fire-side life at home was a press hit, delivering 39 pieces of national and regional coverage including The Sun, Mail Online, Dailystar.co.uk, Thisismoney.co.uk, Thesun.co.uk, The Scottish Sun, Scottish Daily Express, and thelondoneconomic.com. Campaign print circulation approached two million and an online readership of 462 million.
Eight months down the line and our work to establish Contura as an industry and lifestyle leader is paying dividends on a daily basis. We’ve been approached for comment on the legalities of using windfall wood in your stove (you can’t! Always look for sustainable, eco-friendly sources of wood and fuel) and delivered 98 pieces of coverage on a range of advice topics in two months since completing the JOMO campaign.
So has it been worth our client investing in campaigns? Well, the proof is in the publishing.
By Jo Kendall
