Webbs
Re-inventing the Webbs brand for modern times
The brief
The research process for Webbs included site audits, stakeholder interviews, and exploring the attitudes and behaviours of current customers and non-customers in this sector.
Working through these elements of the research phase with Webbs, allowed us to begin addressing changes to their brand identity with confidence, ensuring that going forwards they maintain the loyalty of current customers whilst future proofing to attract new customer bases. The research was a valuable initial phase in the broader project, informing the creative brief and direction for the design team and client.
Insights
During the pandemic, gardening was a hobby and passion which was increasingly taken up in the absence of normality. Consequently, garden centres became a haven for many, who wanted to leave their homes to browse, or shop and invest in gardening to fill empty time.
Despite a return to normality, it is still key for Garden centre operators to consider how they might, in the context of a re-aging demographic and consumer base, future-proof their brand to ensure they stay relevant in a highly competitive market.
Methodology
Secondary research allowed us to develop an overall direction as to where the brand could be positioned to future-proof their identity and stand out from competitors.
Topics addressed during these interviews included internal brand values, brand identity, own-brand products, and Webbs’ current customer base. At this stage, responses could be compared to identify any themes that were frequently mentioned, giving us deep insight into the internal culture, and relationship between stakeholders and the Webbs brand itself.
Targeting customers from Webb’s club card database. We reached over 2,000 customers, asking them questions relating to the brands identity, and values as well as customer expectations and attitudes.
The raw data collected, alongside the existing insight drawn from the stakeholder interviews, allowed us to begin making recommendations to the client, and carving out a creative direction in a brand matrix as a team to inform the next stage of the project.
The results
The research as a whole allowed us to gain first-hand insights into the Garden centre sector, and customer and non-customer attitudes and expectations of and towards Webbs as a brand. In doing so we could enable Webbs to understand how as a brand they could further enhance the consumer’s impression of the brand’s identity, and the overall retail journey. The research then defined a creative brief and bolstered the subsequent recommendations to future proof the Webbs brand.
