How redheadPR helped the Crop Protection Association to reposition its garden care products

We caught up with Sara Tye, Founder of redhead PR and Chamber member. This interesting case study tells us how redheadPR helped the Crop Protection Association (CPA) to inform consumers about the safe use of garden care products. By carrying out and promoting detailed research, the CPA became a voice and advisory forum to consumers and achieved an incredible reach of 940 million people. The campaign also involved customer and  press feedback, events, content and social media. The results were extraordinary. Read on to find out how they achieved this.

BACKGROUND

redheadPR  were approached by the Crop Protection Association (CPA) to help consumers better understand the safe use of garden care products (weed/pest control) and to help increase awareness. The CPA were finding that there were negative viewpoints around the use of these products but they were not sure why.

In order to get the message out redheadPR first had to tackle the main opinion formers – journalists. It was perceived that negative coverage of the subject was the main issue.

redheadPR and the CPA created the brand ‘Common Sense Gardening’  an initiative from the Garden Group of the Crop Association (CPA) which soon became the initiative working to ensure the safety of the use of garden care products and assist consumers with any of their gardening weed and pest issues. It provides tips on the safe usage, storage and disposal of the garden products they use on a day-to-day basis. This was created on the website, via leaflets and videos and on social media.

APPROACH

redheadPR conducted extensive desk research. After looking into the current view points and market research available, it soon became apparent to redheadPR that there was a much bigger issue at hand, and not just with the consumer. This is what they discovered:

Journalists were confused about garden care products and their use. Due to this journalists steer away from writing about them. There was little evidence that journalists wrote negatively about them – they just didn’t write about them. However a lot of journalists regularly use garden care products. There is little editorial advice or coverage on garden care products and when there is – it is generally a small mention as an aside.

Consumers use garden care products as have little time to garden. especially millennials. They want an instagramable garden and a quick solution to gardening. There is little information available for them on garden care products. It’s about lifestyle, not science.

RESEARCHING THE MARKET

redheadPR advised that the Crop Protection Association (CPA) needed to conduct their own primary research to be able to combat negative assumptions and questions when it came to gardeners using garden care products. 

Research carried out by the CPA in May 2018 showed that a large proportion of people with their own gardens use garden products to save time on weeding. 

The study questioned over 1,000 gardeners aged from 18 to over 60, and highlights just how important the garden has become as an extra space at home, ideal for relaxation and entertaining. The majority of the survey sample managed the gardening jobs around the home themselves, with very few people employing gardeners for this duty.

Most people today believe their time is precious, so spending hours weeding gardens and caring for beds and borders is seen as tedious and too time consuming. 

Other stats showed:

 •            40% would like to spend less time weeding their gardens

•             25% believe that garden care products are fundamental to the proper maintenance of their gardens

•             37% need a faster impact on remedying problem areas

•             28% of people want to spend less time weeding their driveways

•             18% of people say they find weeding their driveways by hand too difficult

•             40% use garden care products to control their weed issues

•             39% of people felt that the garden is the new living room

•             25% of people spent more money than their parents did when it came to their gardens

•             37% people don’t have time to weed their lawn by hand

•             45% of gardeners have seen an increase in the number of weeds and invasive plants in their gardens

This evidence proved their theory – that people used garden care products and that there was little information through the media available to gardeners about them.

This opened up a huge opportunity for the Common Sense Gardening initiative to be a voice and advisory forum to consumers on the subject matter.

SOLUTIONS

By conducting primary research, it allowed redheadPR to start new conversations with garden journalists – the voice to consumers who garden.

They created a report of their findings and advised their client to attend and exhibit at the Garden Press Event in February 2019 at London’s Business Design Centre. The event is firmly established as the launch of the gardening season, with all the key gardening journalists and media.

Prior to the event, redheadPR announced that the Common Sense Gardening initiative would be exhibiting and advised attendees to visit their stand.

redheadPR spoke to around 100 journalists on the Common Sense Gardening initiative’s stand, and almost a third (30%) had seen the press release about attendance sent out two days earlier. 

Just over a quarter of attendees (26%) went to the stand to collect goody bags. Social media reach from the event was more than 130,000. 

Following on from speaking with some of the top journalists in the industry, it resulted in national coverage for the client including Telegraph online and Yahoo.com. Combined with other coverage achieved in a six month period, this resulted in a circulation over 940M.

What fantastic results!

WHY CHAMBER MEMBERSHIP?

Sara also told us why she values being a Business West Chamber and Initiative member:

“Modern business may be increasingly digital, but networking is more crucial than ever. In a competitive marketplace, great networkers know how to build their contacts list to build strong relationships, to make profitable introductions and to leverage opportunities for mutual gain!

But what many people don't realise is just how important face to face networking still is. Yes, social media plays a vital role in professional relationship management - but never be fooled into thinking that it replaces that vital eye-contact, handshake and personal experience of an individual.

Joining the Chamber does just that. We recommend all our clients to join”.

Sara Tye, Founder of redhead PR