Educating Consumers on the Wonders of Wool

Increasing consumer awareness is a key part of our marketing strategy. This is all designed to increase front-end demand for British wool rich products and increase the price of our members wool; a key tool to achieving this is PR.

During the past 12 months, we have seen a significant increase in consumer press coverage, with 160 pieces secured across national and regional media.

Graham Clark, Marketing Director, said: “Over the past three years, British Wool has focused on two main areas: Increasing the number of brands using British wool in their products (through the licensing scheme) and increasing brand awareness amongst consumers.

PR plays a crucial part in this as it allows us to target a wide audience through our activity. During this time, we have secured coverage across many different national publications such as The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Financial Times, as well as great regional press coverage. This is key as we strive to drive more consumer demand for British wool rich products.”

Working with influencers is also key as Graham, added: “Working with influencers can boost consumer awareness dramatically and we have been very fortunate to work with three great influencers over the past 12 months; Shaun the Sheep, Patrick Grant (Great British Sewing Bee) and the comedian Joe Lycett.”

Examples of the coverage gained on the back of these partnerships include:

• Over 350,000 views of the first Shaun the Sheep social media collaboration.
• Radio interview with Patrick Grant played 952 times with 120,000 views across social media.
• 36,000 likes on a post by Joe Lycett about a jumper he had made from British wool.

Graham said: “We don’t just target the consumer through PR, we also use social media (over 110k consumer followers across our channels), exhibitions and events, working with our licensee partners and the British Wool online shop, where sales have increased by 20% during the past 12 months.

It is great to see the amount of coverage secured over the past 12 months through our PR activity and digital channels. This is helping us push the British Wool brand to new audiences who are increasingly looking for more sustainable options when making purchasing decisions.”