B&Q
The Gardener of the Year
This was an PR campaign where the role for strategy was to raise B&Q’s credibility as a garden centre with gardeners everywhere.
B&Q weathered the pandemic better than many businesses, as people turned to DIY because they had to or wanted to.
They had also launched a brilliant new advertising campaign from the sharp minds at Uncommon.
The brand wanted to carry on building momentum with a fame-driving PR campaign for B&Q as a garden centre in the run-up to their biggest trading period of the year – the Easter Bank Holiday.
The rallying advertising campaign from Uncommon
The problem with a fame-driving campaign for plants was apparent from the first stages of basic research: people thought the plants were rubbish.
While the brief was to originally do range, I had the sense that “we have the largest range of products you will hate” is not a good fame building message.
We had to push quality.
Instead of the the younger, urban, customer high on pot plant trends, I felt we had to go for the older, homeowner, garden-bearing customer, who we would reach through traditional media, not TikTok.
We didn’t need to overclaim – we just needed to improve associations between B&Q and plants.
The strategic narrative was:
B&Q and brilliant gardens were natural bedfellows
After all, if you’ve been getting deliveries of peat-free compost and mulch, and tools, and seed, and everything else – why not get the plants as well?
This spawned the creative idea: B&Q Gardener of the Year Competition.
It first ran in 2021, and is still running today. An asset that has outlived the relationship B&Q had with Uncommon and Freuds.
Vic Reeves and Pru Leith were excellent brand ambassadors for the Gardener of the Year competition on subsequent years.
