A social success for Purdy

Few companies have achieved the same brand loyalty as Purdy. Almost a century on from its launch, the company continues to supply professional decorators with high-performing brushes, rollers and accessories all crafted with premium materials and benefitting from superior workmanship.

However, Purdy’s online presence did not match its real-world reputation. As such the aim was to reconnect Purdy with its loyal customers through social media, strengthen their affinity for the brand and introduce a new generation of professionals to Purdy products.

Facebook was identified as an important tool for achieving this and we developed an extensive programme of creative campaigns to encourage engagement and advocacy. This was supported by targeted Facebook advertising to boost the reach of communications and drive social media recruitment.

These campaigns included:

• Pride of Purdy – customers were encouraged to post pictures of jobs they’d completed using the company’s brushes and/or rollers, and explain why they had used them. This both drove engagement with the page and provided testimonials that Purdy could reuse on social.
• Purdy Hall of Fame - encouraged followers to post pictures alongside their Purdy paint brushes/rollers and to share their story.
• Competitions and giveaways linked to Purdy’s sponsorship of the English Football League (EFL) matches, as well as a weekly ‘Freebie Friday Giveaway’.

Facebook also formed an integral part of the wider campaigns we developed for Purdy including ‘Inspiring the Next Generation’ and ‘Mentor of the Year'.

These campaigns aimed to turn everyday Purdy users into micro-influencers, with their endorsements seen across Purdy’s and their own social channels. Budget was also put behind boosting posts to extend the reach and garner further engagement.

Overall, we achieved:

• 12,616 likes and 23,723 followers added
• A post reach of 1.7 million.
• 13,117 post engagements.
• Average post engagement 20 times higher than Facebook average
• 510,000 video views.
• 10% of all web traffic driven from social media activity
• 14% of all stockist searches generated from social media activity

The Purdy Facebook campaign was shortlisted in the Best Social Media Campaign at the Construction Marketing Awards 2021.