WWA Gets Into Bed With Someone BIG!

Up until now, the Wood Window Alliance has focused its promotional activity on the public sector and developers. We’ve done a lot of work re-building the reputation of wood windows: helping to ensure BRE’s Green Guide recognised their inherent sustainability, conducting research with Davis Langdon showing our frames were carbon negative, and then, most recently, conducting research with Imperial College London that led to our minimum 60 year estimated service life claim – giving our members’ windows a lower Whole Life Cost than comparable PVC-u windows over the life of a building.

This work is bearing fruit – and we’ve had specific examples of Housing Associations that have changed their policy from PVC-u to wood windows as a result of a close examination of the evidence behind the research.

But we have real ambitions to change the face of the industry. I’ve gone on record with an objective to increase wood’s share of the market from the current 14% to 24% by 2014. The only way to achieve a shift of this scale – especially in a market with so little investment in new construction – is to tackle the domestic replacement sector, which represents around 70% of total window sales. A lot of people thought we were crazy, but we’ve put together a plan that has every chance of meeting our goals – as long as our members get behind it.

It’s a plan that embraces the second half of this year and then another two full years – up to the end of 2013. And it’s a plan that’s got everything – a new brand strategy, a revitalised brand look, celebrity endorsement, makeovers, advertising, social network marketing and a whole new website with a powerful search engine to ensure the enquiries we generate go straight to the members who can best fulfil them.

The new strategy targets aspirational women homeowners – women who spend time and money on their homes because they see them as an extension of their own personality. So, one of the first things we’re doing is working on the way we present the brand to consumers – we won’t be changing the trade brand, but we want a softer, more up-market look for consumers, reflecting the quality, craftsmanship and desirability of our members’ windows.

 We’re just tying up the deal with our celebrity, who’s absolutely spot-on for the job. She knows what she’s talking about, and shares our mission to get wood windows back into the nation’s homes. Watch this space!

This Autumn she’ll be featuring in a teaser advertising campaign designed to identify a number of properties of different periods that are just crying out to have lovely wood windows reinstated. Meanwhile we’ll be designing a whole new website for launch in 2012.

The first half of 2012 will be taken up with the launch of the website and carrying out the makeovers, which will provide photography for the advertising campaign and for a lovely lifestyle brochure.

The campaign proper kicks off in the second half of the year – and will be supported by a full social marketing campaign, including the celebrity’s own ‘tweets’.

All of this will be underpinned by a CRM (Customer Relationship Marketing) programme, the new and improved ‘find a member’ search engine, and a membership drive to improve members’ installation services.

It’s no surprise we’re gaining new members. Just this year Allan Brothers, Darnbridge and Westgate Joinery have joined – and there are more in the pipeline.

If you make quality wood windows and you don’t want to miss out on this huge sales opportunity, now’s the time to become members. If you’d like to know more about joining – about the standards required for membership, and the annual fee (very modest!), get in touch with Barnaby Dickens.

As we know, fine words butter no parsnips – this time we mean business!