News
February 14, 2018
For the love of stationery!
This year’s National Stationery Week will run from Monday, April 23 to Sunday, April 29. The team behind National Stationery Week is appealing for help from the industry to get its 2018 campaign underway.
Last year, 74.5 million people, both online and in print, saw orheard information about the week and the brands and products that supported it; this included several mentions on the Simon Mayo drivetime show on BBC Radio 2 and the lunchtime and breakfast shows on Absolute Radio.
What does NSW want to achieve?
The purpose of National Stationery Week and its Writing Matters campaign has always been to celebrate writing by hand, to get people all over the world talking about and sharing details of their favourite stationery and stationers, and of course for everyone to send more letters and cards!
What sort of results does it get?
The 2017 campaig
n generated nearly 200 pieces of national press coverage, inspired the use of a bespoke NSW franking stamp by Royal Mail, and reached 30,000 stationery fans on social media. World Stationery Day saw contacts made in over 90 countries worldwide, and 100 retailers ran their own National Stationery Week promotions.
Who gets involved?
The campaign’s own online stationery community of 20,000 twitter and Facebook followers takes the lead on helping to spread the word and engaging with the brands who support it. The consumer media and bloggers, suppliers, retailers, schools and the trade press also all do their bit to promote NSW.
Can you help in 2018?
Ocean Media and the team that organizes the London & Manchester Stationery Shows, will continue to man and co-ordinate the NSW website/Twitter feed/Facebook and a new Instagram account.
However, they are looking for assistance – and they are happy to accept your design time, money, products or assistance with printing or distribution – whichever suits you best!
If you have a design team or are a designer who would love to devise the campaign logos and designs, or work on the campaign website (and have their name/company clearly acknowledged) then step forward to receive the list of applications and materials required.
If you have a great idea for one of the ‘7 days of stationery’ themes, can come up with a cracking idea on how to promote it online and tempt new stationery addicts to follow the campaign we want to hear it!
Remember, it needs to be an idea that retailers and the campaign’s 20,000 stationery addict followers, plus lots of new stationery fans can get involved in.
“We’re happy to accept people’s ideas, design skills, money, products and, or assistance with printing and distribution – whatever companies are able to do – to engage with the huge legion of stationery fans out there who love to support the week and the brands and products involved in it,” says Vanessa Fortnam, part of the Stationery Shows team.
2018 will mark the seventh time the stationery industry has worked together to promote stationery, in all its forms and uses, and the love of handwriting, to a consumer audience.
This year the Ocean Media team are also encouraging the stationery community to come forward to promote the wider #WritingMatters campaign throughout the year.
“There are other obvious times of year when it would be great to boost consumer interest in stationery; to coincide with back to school times, ‘Fresher Week’ at colleges and the run up to a ‘Creative Stationery Christmas’ – so we would love to help organise ongoing consumer competitions and events that the stationery industry can easily support during the year that promote the ‘Writing Matters’ principle behind National Stationery Week.” confirmed Vanessa.
So, if you, or your team, would like to claim one of the ‘7 days of stationery’, or can help with the immediate task of coming up with a campaign logo then please stick your hand up and get in touch with Vanessa to let her know what you can do.
Anyone interested in any other aspect of the week, or longer term ideas, should also register their names with Vanessa, in order to receive an invite to a National Stationery Week briefing session in early March which will be held in London.
For further information please contact:
Vanessa Fortnam E: vanessa.fortnam@
