A decade of driving shower sales for Bristan

Discover how we helped Bristan drive tap and shower sales for more than 10 years with an award-winning communications programme.

Challenge

The UK’s number one tap and shower brand, Bristan, briefed us to consistently drive brand awareness and engagement across a 10-year partnership. It was key that our marcomms activity targeted the company’s three business audiences: installers, merchants and specifiers.

Solution

Our strategy to engage with installers is fourfold:

• Strong presence in trade media

• Direct e-communications, through newsletters and solus emailers through media partners sure as Installer Magazine

• Creating a dedicated community ‘On Tap’ installer moderated Facebook group featuring a mix of technical chat and more light hearted content

• Engage at in-person events to deliver the Bristan brand experience to installers at events such as Screwfix Live, the Installer Show and trade merchant events and roadshows

Specifiers – We engaged specifier customers by delivering a topical gated whitepaper on infection control for water, a key topic of interest against the backdrop of the pandemic. Bringing together the views of 200 frontline workers, the content was housed on Bristan’s website as gated content – which meant we could capture customer details. Supplementing this was a focus on thought leadership PR, using the content to create press materials and securing coverage within key specifier titles.

Merchants – We showed our support to the merchant sector by delivering the industry’s first-ever virtual roundtable debate in partnership with Builders Merchants’ News. Our impressive guestlist included John Newcomb, CEO of Builders Merchant Federation; Robin Beal, Founder and Chairman of The IPG; and Andrew Harrison, CEO of Travis Perkins Plumbing & Heating Division.

We supplemented our social media with technical insights, how tos and behind-the-scenes content to drive interest and build brand trust.

Impact

Across our longstanding retainer, we helped Bristan consistently maintain a market-leading position within each of its key sectors. We exceeded KPIs year-on-year, generating impactful results above and beyond our original brief:

• More than 100 pieces of trade coverage secured each year

• Recruited more than 5,000 plumbers to Bristan’s email newsletter, thanks to our first-of-its-kind Facebook group

• Generated an average brand reach of half a million every month through our integrated comms approach

• Contributed to a 50% surge in shower searches following the Covid pandemic

Our work won two awards at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations’ PRide Awards:

• Best Corporate and Business Communications Campaign

• Best Construction, Property and Infrastructure Campaign