With less than three weeks to go to The Greats 2019 awards – which take place on Wednesday May 15 at London’s Grosvenor House on Park Lane – GiftsandHome.net put Ian Downes of Start Licensing, and BlissHome’s Gabrielle Bliss, sponsors of the Best Lifestyle or Homewares Retailer of Gifts category, into the hot seat.
Ian, can you tell us what it means to Start Licensing and BlissHome to be sponsoring a Greats Gift Retailer award this year?
“We felt that sponsoring The Greats was an efficient way of showcasing theBlissHome Nadiya Make Life Colourful homewares range to the retail community while showing our support for the retail sector and retailers.
“The Greats is a fabulous celebration of retail. We know that Nadiya has a great public profile and is a much admired personality. We therefore think that her product range is one that consumers will respond well to and we believe it is a great range for retailers. Nadiya has helped promote BlissHome’s range via her social media channels, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and consumer reaction has been positive and encouraging. We hope that by highlighting the range at The Greats more retailers will become aware of the range and consider stocking it.”
Continues Ian: “Start Licensing has been working with Nadiya to develop her licensing programme, and we were delighted when BlissHome came on board as the homewares licensee. They are a very experienced company, with a great reputation in the market, and place a real emphasise on good quality product. We wanted to work with a licensee in this category that would embrace the opportunity of working with Nadiya and would seek to involve her in the product development process. BlissHome understood our objectives fully and saw the commercial potential in partnering with her. They also recognised Nadiya’s passion for product. The current range features colours, patterns, shapes and products that Nadiya has personally chosen and worked on with BlissHome. The range includes items such as tapas bowls, bowls, plates, aprons, tea towels and some signature items such as a magnetic wall mounted spice rack, all fusing practicality with design flair.”
Gabrielle, can you tell us some of the ‘great’ things that are happening with BlissHome’s Nadiya Make Life Colourful brand please, and also with Nadiya herself?
“It has been a real pleasure to work with Nadiya as she is such a creative person. She knows exactly what she wants something to look like and has made the process of developing the range both easy and very enjoyable. We are now working on new products for the second phase and Nadiya has come up with some inspired ideas, so watch this space!”
Nadiya has enjoyed an incredible career in the media since winning The Great British Bake Off, with several high profile TV series shown on the BBC, and each series accompanied by a book. Her latest series, Time to Eat, will air this summer on BBC2, with tie-in book of the same name published by Michael Joseph on July 11.
Nadiya is also working with Swarovski on their new campaign for 2019 #FollowTheLight – a celebration of inspirational women empowering one another to shine bright together and to be the best version of themselves. Plus, she has also recently worked with fashion retailer Oasis on a PR and promotional campaign. Photography for this campaign featured BlissHome’s products and was displayed in Oasis stores throughout the UK.
She has also developed a series of children’s books, Bake Me A Story, and is well established in the publishing industry where she will be interviewed at the Children’s Media Conference later this year. Nadiya also appears frequently on TV chat shows and cookery shows and is frequently interviewed in the consumer press.
Nadiya has established a significant public profile and is well regarded by consumers. At BlissHome, we have worked with Nadiya to promote her range across social media as well in a coordinated consumer PR campaign.
Top: Nadiya is shown with her colourful tapas bowls, everyday bowls in four different designs and with the magnetic spice rack. All products are from BlissHome’s Nadiya Make Life Colourful collection.
