Wedgwood opens door to untapped audience via lifestyle magazine

Image courtesy of Wedgwood

British luxury home and lifestyle brand Wedgwood is proving its relevancy after 250 years with a contemporary content strategy aimed at a new generation of affluent consumers.

Wanting to engage a digital audience while not alienating its loyal customers or losing sight of its luxury status, Wedgwood has launched Behind the Blue Door, an online lifestyle magazine that incorporates its teaware and other products into editorials covering everything from food to fashion. Showing the power of content, Wedgwood’s magazine has exceeded expectations in engagement and visitors since its launch.

“Engaging a fresh audience without alienating existing consumers needed careful consideration,” said Erica Thorpe, managing director at White Horse, the content agency that built Behind the Blue Door. “We wanted to place Wedgwood firmly in a contemporary space and reinforce the brand values of being ‘distinctly English’ and ‘premium.’”

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Behind the Blue Door is updated daily, ensuring that the food, drink, home, lifestyle and fashion content is not stagnant.

Behind the Blue Door homepage

Providing inspiration for a multi-generational audience, the site is split into three sections: Afternoon Tea Reinvented, Weekender’s Brunch and Decadent Dinner. Bringing the traditional English afternoon tea into the 21st century are features tackling topics such as current floral fashions, Instagram-worthy tea hostess tips and bone broth’s restorative powers that have the fashionable crowd trading in their green juices.

Wedgwood products are used to illustrate editorials. For instance, in the dinner section, an article on Matthew Bourne’s new ballets ends with a call-to-action to “add a touch of drama to your table” with some of Wedgwood’s baroque pieces. This links to a separate article spotlighting extravagant tableware, with links to buy pieces from retailers.

When the site was brought in front of a focus group, the generational divide in consuming content was evident. While millennials were happy to just read the stories, Gen-X readers wanted a stronger tie-in to products, putting more brand in branded content.

For Behind the Blue Door, Wedgwood has launched dedicated social accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. White Horse ran native advertising and paid social media placements to send traffic to the site.

Wedgwood’s @ExploreBlueDoor Instagram account

Consumers can also join an exclusive membership club on the magazine. A free subscription to a monthly mail list entitles members to perks such as a discount code, automatic entries into a gift box drawing and the opportunity to get a question answered by one of the site’s experts.

“Obviously with a new campaign like this you need to build social channels up from scratch,” Ms. Thorpe said. “But it’s not just about grabbing headline numbers; what really matters is making sure followers fit within your target demographic.

“We assist organic engagement with carefully targeted paid media campaigns, then it’s optimization, optimization, optimization.

“The winning combination for this particular audience is short, snappy posts with bags of personality, attractive visual media and heavy engagement with influencers across fashion, food and lifestyle.”

Millennial marketing
This editorial projects follows in the footsteps of Wedgwood’s efforts to seek a contemporary audience through product selection. This has included a slightly more informal approach, a stronger focus on teaware and new gifting and interior products.

Recently, the brand collaborated with Topshop on a teacup and saucer sporting a print from the fast fashion retailer’s spring collection.

Behind the Blue Door gives these new products a place to shine.

In recent years, Wedgwood has aligned itself with luxury services to allow consumers to experience its wares firsthand.

Recently, Wedgwood began a worldwide tradition at Langham Hotels.

“The Langham Afternoon Tea by Wedgwood” first launched in Hong Kong, and remaining locations soon followed. With Wedgwood as the regular place setting for menu items, Langham has created a centralized location for consumers to access Wedgwood products (see story).

For luxury brands, content platforms often extend beyond product-focused features into lifestyle topics.

Italian automaker Ferrari is finding a new way to stay in consumers’ lives with the launch of the Ferrari Magazine mobile application.

TOFM, The Official Ferrari Magazine, launched in the app store on May 1 and largely comprises articles exploring the relationship that various artists have with their Ferrari vehicles. A mobile application will help enthusiasts and prospects to interact with the brand more thoroughly in their leisure time (see story).

For Wedgwood, its content approach has been successful.

“The site has generated 3.8 million impressions since launch and noticeably boosted engagement,” said Sally Warmington, marketing and ecommerce director for the EMEA region at Wedgwood, who commissioned the project. “It has given our brand a unique voice and story, told to a previously untapped audience.

“Designer and co-owner of Firmdale Hotel Group Kit Kemp, author and chef Sophie Michell and food columnists Lucy Carr-Ellison and Jemima Jones at Tart London have all collaborated with the editorial team to create lively, thought-provoking articles with the emphasis on engagement and shareability,” she said.

“We’re nurturing relationships with luxury bloggers to secure top quality backlinks and we understand our target audience better too. It’s all about articles that grab attention and create relevance for our products to build lasting customer relationships.”

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