Check out our piece spotlighting our volunteer work on the Hospital Rooms exhibition, now live on the Elephant website! And if anyone has any more photos of the mural in further stages of completion, please post them here and I will update the piece with them > https://elephant.art/the-writing-is-on-the-wall-the-elephant-team-help-a-charity-get-creative-17082022/

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The Journey – Welcome Aboard

Last time we travelled to Poland to learn more about the amazing livestreams and postcard activation as part of the Journey campaign.. This week we are going back to The Netherlands, where the Journey campaign is full on during this hot summer.

For The Netherlands we have set-up a 360 with five collaborating parties : Winsor & Newton, key retailer Gerstaecker NL, online creative and influencer Julia Henze, Urban Sketchers Netherlands and our local Instagram account @Art_Inspirations_nl. Together we started Winsor & newton The Journey on the 17th of May.

During a 5-month Journey campaign in The Netherlands, all parties are continuously creating, publishing and sharing inspiring, educational and promotional content online, holding on to an intricate shared planning aligned to retailer’s promotions, NPD launches and retail and USK events.

Since the last post on this campaign in The Netherlands two months ago, there has been happening a lot!  Our dedicated influencer Julia Henze has been posting so much wonderful stories and posts on her Instagram profile, engaging with the audience on the art of Urban Sketching while sharing informing and educating content on Winsor & Newton materials.

She has created dedicated articles, a livestream at the retailer’s channel, three awesome challenges and was present at the Gerstaecker store during the national USK event in Maastricht. It’s wonderful, it’s colourful, it’s inspiring many artists.

Find for example here Julia’s  Article on Atmospheric perspective and her Article on Cotman Metallics

Beside all content generated by our influencer, there is a constant activity on the channels and websites of all the other parties. Gerstaecker shows Banners on their homepage as well a landing page for the whole campaign, dedicated newsletters, promotion in online and offline brochures.Or f.e. A blogpost on Cotman Metallics on their blog.

Urban Sketchers NL publish USK interviews and video’s on the USK website and our local Art Inspirations publishes Local and branded content. The use of trackable links on Instagram is leading the audience straight to the webshop of Gerstaecker.

So how about sales?

During a National USK Sketchday at Maastricht we met approx. 130 sketchers to whom we introduced the new Cotman Metallics via instore demos and sampling in Gerstaecker’s brand new store, which showed a 100% growth on W&N sales during the month of July in comparison to 2021!

Regarding sales at Gerstaecker during the last month of July, we measured a 15%.growth of instore sales in comparison to 2021 regarding the single colours of PWC and Cotman, the whole Cotman range as well as the Gouache range.

Regarding online sales, we noticed during the last month of July the figures in comparison to 2021 stayed the same for the single colour of PWC and Cotman (while competitor’s sales declined), a growth of 30% in the sales of Gouache and a 50% growth of the whole Cotman Range, mainly driven by the Cotman Themed Sets!

Well that’s it for now.

Want to follow Winsor & Newton’s  and Julia’s journey? Make sure to keep an eye on her Instagram page where she frequently shares her journey on her story.

Next week we are travelling to Sweden.

See you there!

Best,

Robert

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A few weeks ago Ravi and Louise from team Elephant visited the veritable Eden that is Raqib Shaw’s studio/ garden/ home in South London. An amazing read, brilliant pictures, and a chance to delve into his world. I always thought Shaw’s paintings were fantastical, but it seems this is his reality! https://elephant.art/gardeners-world-inside-raqib-shaws-private-eden-17082022/

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I’ve just been sent this photo of our wonderful Charbonnel shop taken by a friend visiting Paris on Saturday.

Look closely at the people in the car and you can see they are looking straight at my friend thinking he was photographing them!😄 

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We had a wonderful community day at Hauser and Wirth yesterday painting the beginnings of an enormous mural for Hospital Rooms. It was great to spend the day with our Colart colleagues from digital marketing and to hear more about the aims and creativity of Hospital Rooms. Thank you to Gareth for organising and I can’t wait to see the finished piece

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