Independent retail wholesaler groups and the Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) are putting their collective weight behind April's consumer awareness campaign; National Home Improvement Month.
The initiative is the brain child of suppliers' trade association BHETA, with many of its members and leading brands supporting the campaign.
After the success of last year’s inaugural National Home Improvement promotion, BHETA has launched the 2019 follow up initiative to take place in April. The campaign uses the registered tagline, "Love the home you live in."
Supporting businesses include Stax Trade Centres, Home Hardware (South West) and Deco alongside the BMF, which are driving the initiative to stimulate consumer interest in home improvement.
David Hibbert, Stax Trade Centres, commented: "The National Home Improvement Month is a fantastic initiative for reinvigorating the Great British passion for DIY ahead of the Easter period. Stax Trade Centres is delighted to be supporting the campaign and is committed to helping our retail customers bring it to life with consumers across the country."
Home Hardware’s Martin Elliott, added: "Home Hardware is delighted to support BHETA’s National Home Improvement Month to help promote this important product sector to consumers. We will be featuring this on 1.2 million consumer advertising brochures being distributed by our Members during April. Running for the full month of April will help build on the success of last year’s campaign and will be even more beneficial to our retailers."
Last week, BHETA announced the recruitment of BBC presenter and DIY enthusiast, Georgina Burnett, as the initiative's official ambassador. Along with National Home Improvement Month, Burnett will be encouraging consumers to improve one area of their homes during the month of April.
The campaign will include online and traditional consumer and social media, including broadcast, national and regional press. At its heart will be the dedicated National Home Improvement Month website featuring ideas and information, blogs and 'how to' videos. There will also be marketing materials for retailers including point of sale, posters, and press ads, to enable them to promote their participation and drive sales at store level.
The BMF will also be promoting the campaign through its members’ branches recognising the importance of the 'white van man' and the 'jobbing builder' to the home improvement sector.
BMF CEO, John Newcomb, said: "The BMF is delighted to support National Home Improvement Month this year and we will be encouraging our members to take part too. It's an excellent platform for both our merchant and supplier members to raise awareness of the importance of materials supply to enable both home and garden improvement."
April will see the collaboration of top suppliers such as: Fiskars, Husqvarna (Gardena, Flymo, McCulloch, Jonsered, Universal), Shurtape (Frog Tape, Duck Tape, T-Rex Tape), Sherwin-Williams (Valspar and Ronseal), Gorilla Glue, Schneider Electric, Croydex, Urfic UK, ZEP UK, L G Harris, Yale, Nilfisk and Doulton Water Filters.
Paul Grinsell, Home Improvement Director at BHETA said, "We had some great learnings and very positive feedback from last year’s campaign and I’m delighted that we have secured the industry backing to develop the concept still further. As before, we have two key objectives - to galvanise and renew consumers’ interest in improving their homes and gardens and to drive sales of home and garden tools, products and consumables through the UK home improvement and garden retail channels.
"This means both inspiring and enabling today’s consumers to re-engage with projects such as home extensions and renovations, garden makeovers, redecorating, 'old school' DIY and hobby gardening. Equally, we need to recognise the generational skills gap and target the younger generation of Millennials with social media-fuelled enthusiasm for a new style of DIY, upcycling, and craft.
"The whole industry needs to appreciate that we operate in a mature market and a digital age and as such we need a platform such as this to show that that home and garden improvement is fun and fulfilling, given the right tools, products, knowledge and advice."
