This year’s National Stationery Week and ‘Writing matters’ campaign has achieved ‘record levels’ of coverage and consumer engagement, with audience reach, excluding retailer online activity and in store traffic, up more than 100% on last year.
Organised by the London Stationery Show, the week was sponsored by BIC, Maped Helix, Nuco International, Sheaffer and Staedtler (UK). Audience reach exceeded 100 million for the first time and highlights included being tweeted about on Mount Everest on World Stationery Day.
Chris Leonard-Morgan, Organiser said, “the myth that writing by hand and stationery products have been killed off by the digital revolution has been well and truly laid to rest. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
The week saw names such as John Lewis, Paperchase, NotOnTheHighStreet, Smiggle, The Pen Shop, WHSmith, Amazon and Smythson as well as independent retailers including Calliope who more than doubled their previous weekly takings, getting involved in store and online with special promotions and sales activity.
Consumer media coverage was also at a ‘record level’ with coverage in the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Independent, Sunday People, Stylist, Huffington Post, Tesco Magazine, Metro, Yours magazine and Red. DJ Simon Mayo reported on National Stationery Week three times on his afternoon DriveTime Show and BBC Radio 2 setting up #stationerysongs.
On social media, National Stationery Week enjoyed periods of trending on Twitter on three different days. Celebrity tweets came from Sarah Millican, Christian O’Connell, Jeremy Vine and Theo Paphitis and retailers involved online included Laura Ashley, Hobbycraft, Bureau Direct, Whittard of Chelsea, Ted Baker, The Works and Moonpig.
Other initiatives included the Stationery Blogger of the Year Award, National Stationery Week’s new partnership with Explore Learning and sponsorship of their Young Writers’ Award, and the establishing of a ‘Why Writing matters to…’ campaign. Those featured included Waterstones’ Managing Director James Daunt, Minister of State for Schools Nick Gibb MP, singer and radio presenter Janey Lee Grace, Paperchase COO David Bateman and award-winning designer Michael Salu.
