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NEWS TOP STORY
Sainsbury’s Leads On Inclusivity The grocer’s LGBT Christmas cards continue its pledge Sainsbury’s is upping its pledge to be the UK’s ‘most inclusive retailer’ with the launch of its first ever same sex Christmas cards. The two Christmas designs go on sale in the supermarket’s entire retail estate of 1,414 stores on November 7, to cover both single sex male and female sends. Carly Pearson, Sainsbury’s card buyer, gave a rapid-fire powerful speech at the GCA AGM and Conference in which she shared insights, beliefs and the retailer’s ambitious aims on the greeting card front for the 26 million customers it serves each week. “Greeting cards play an important role in social communication. To remain ever relevant, the designs, the editorial and the captions need to reflect society,” Carly told PG. These Christmas designs, published by UK Greetings for Sainsbury’s, follow on from
the single sex Valentine’s Day designs as well as a Mother’s Day card that was tailored to children of same sex parents that received such positive reaction from customers and the public at large earlier this year. As Carly told the attendees at the GCA AGM, “The population in the UK above 16 stands at 51 million with 3.1 million adults currently identifying themselves as not hetrosexual – that’s 6% of the total adult population of the UK, ” before leaving publishers with a shared challenge. “How is it possible that we can and do have cards in our ranges both from and to the cat and dog, but no cards that address the lifestyle of 6% of the population?” Top: New same sex Christmas cards for Sainsbury’s. Above: Sainsbury’s card and wrap buyer Carly Pearson delivering her keynote speech at the GCA AGM.
Three quarters of card businesses promote via Facebook Social media is the most popular online marketing activity for the greeting card and giftware industry, according to the findings of a year-long research study undertaken by Card & Gift Network (www.cardandgiftnetwork.com), involving over 600 greeting card and gift businesses. Charlotte Biggs, founder of Card & Gift Network (below) (which consults with companies to develop their online activities), embarked on the research project to gauge how greeting card and giftware companies were promoting themselves online. Charlotte said of the project,“With a better understanding of how the industry is promoting itself online, we can measure our efforts against best practice of professional marketers and find new ways to improve.” The research looked at what marketing channels card and gift companies are using online. Analysing data from the 642 companies tracked, Charlotte discovered that the most popular form of marketing was social media. Some 76% of businesses surveyed were using between one and seven social media channels to promote their greeting card and gift products – the most popular of these were Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Of these Facebook was the most popular social media channel with 71% having a Facebook page for their business. Commenting on the findings Charlotte said: “The popularity of social media is a great sign that the industry is forward thinking and willing to embrace new technologies to reach customers.” Other highlights of the research included: l Of all the social media channels, Facebook is the one that is most popular in the card industry. l 38% of the 642 companies analysed had a blog to showcase their brand. l Only 35% used email marketing, despite this being one of the most popular marketing methods for professional marketers. l Just 69 (11%) companies had used ‘Pay Per Click’ paid advertising to promote their business in the last year.
Lola Design launches marketing campaign Design-led greeting card and art brand, Lola Design, has launched an integrated PR and marketing campaign, entitled Just Beautiful. The focus is to drive brand awareness among consumers, retailers and potential licensees through the press, online sites, bloggers and influencers in the interiors and lifestyle sectors. Wife and husband team, Amanda and Frank Mountain, owners of Lola Design have enlisted the expertise of 23PR (the same PR and social media company that has worked with Sara Miller to help build the Sara Miller London brand), while Hamilton Branding, a leading digital marketing, content marketing, social media marketing and branding agency, has produced video content which anchors the digital aspect of the campaign. “Our dream is to build an internationally recognisable lifestyle brand known for beautiful design. We are still at the beginning of the journey but have a vision to extend that presence across multiple categories into more markets,” says Frank Mountain, who looks after the sales and marketing aspects of the business. The beautifully shot mini films feature Amanda, Frank and their cute dog Rocky as well as capturing the essence of the Lola Design brand. In the first couple of days alone the film was watched by 13.8k people via Lola Design’s Facebook page.
900th Card Factory store Card Factory opened its 900th UK store last month at Epping Forest Shopping Park, only a few metres away from Clintons’ headquarters. This landmark opening comes after a sustained period of expansion for the retailer, with around 50 new stores opened every year for the past 10 years. Karen Hubbard, ceo, commented: “We are thrilled to have reached this fantastic milestone of 900 stores, which demonstrates the rapid growth of Card Factory since opening our first store in Wakefield 20 years ago.” Above: Card Factory’s 900th store is opposite Clintons’ headquarters in Essex.
PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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