Find out what we got up to in 2022 - Awards, Charities, Celebrities

Here at Konfidence HQ, we are looking forward to a restful Christmas holiday after what has been a good year here in the UK and internationally, forming new partnerships and winning lots more awards.  We are looking forward to even better times ahead in 2023 with new products and designs on the way.

In preparation, we’d like to highlight some of our recent PR successes and our marketing plans for the months ahead.  We would also love to hear all about what you are planning - please share your ideas and photos with our marketing and social media teams via Sam on s.stewart@imagine-comms.co.uk

2022 AWARDS 

Organic Baby Awards New for 2022, was the Organic Baby Awards which as the name suggests is dedicated to products that are organic (or sustainable / eco-friendly).  We entered the Splashy™™ Swim Nappy and we won not one but TWO awards - Gold for Best Swim Nappy and Silver for Best Eco-Friendly Innovation.

Made for Mums For the second year in a row, our eco-friendly Splashy™™ swimwear has been recognised by the testers and judges at the Made for Mums awards - this year it was the turn of the Splashy™™ Swim Nappy which was awarded Bronze in the baby & children’s swimwear category.

Nursery Online For the first time, we also entered the Splashy™™ swimwear range into the 2022 Nursery Online Trade Awards for a best eco-friendly product.  It was open to all nursery products, so a hotly contested category, but we were delighted to be recognised with a Bronze award.

Two years in a row with Bizzie Baby It wasn’t just the Splashy™™ Swim Nappy receiving awards this year, Bizzie Baby reviewers also awarded Gold to our Original Konfidence Jacket for a second year in a row, with one of the independent testers saying: “Visually stunning, great quality, and definitely worth the price. I love it”.  It’s not easy to be awarded Gold by Bizzie Baby, as the scoring system is so stringent – and rightly so for credibility – which makes this award extra special.  Should we try for a third year in a row!

SUPPORTING CHARITIES HOME AND ABROAD

This year we continued to support the RNLI throughout the summer sharing their beach and holiday water safety advice leaflets to customers, including promoting their headline message ‘Float to Live’. 

Back in 2019, we also joined with the Love the Oceans charity which provides free swimming lessons to 4-18 years, and in August every year teach 200+ children during a 2-week intensive swimming course in Guinjata Bay, an area in Mozambique. During our discussions, Love the Oceans told us that the pools there are unheated and can get cold, especially for the very young children as a lot of them are small for their age because of the lack of nutrients in a typical Mozambique diet. In support, we donated a bundle of our Warma Wetsuits to the charity, to help keep the children warm in the pool for longer. The pandemic then ground everything to a halt for a couple of years, but we are pleased to report that the free intensive swimming lessons were back this summer, and the children were finally able to reap the benefits of our Warma Wetsuits during their swimming lessons.

STAnd Up for Swimming

As announced in previous newsletters, we have been supporting STA’s STAnd Up for Swimming charity initiative this year, which has been created by STA, a national governing body for swimming, to tackle the national shortages of swimming teachers in the UK as a result of the pandemic. We are pleased to report that the charity campaign has been a huge success training more than 900 new swimming teachers.

Alongside this we also worked with STA to produce posters in the Autumn that promote the importance of keeping pools clean and safe - they are available for swim schools to download for free from the STA website.  As an extension, we also launched a fun #WheresSplashy™ competition at the STA’s National Conference in October, to give swim schools the chance to win one of our teacher kit bags – all they have to do is share a photo of the clean pools poster in-situ at their pool like our first winner did here.

SOCIAL MEDIA

If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll see we’ve partnered this year with several major parenting influencers, who together have a combined reach of over a million followers.  We have also been celebrity spotting, and while they might not be familiar faces outside of the UK, they have millions of followers on Instagram – they included TV Presenter Stacey Soloman and Fitness Coach Joe Wicks (pictured here with his son in a Konfidence Floatsuit).

#KonfidenceKids

Also, on Instagram, don’t forget to tag @konfidenceuk in your customer’s photos and we will share and add them to our #KonfidenceKids gallery.

THE GOLDEN BUCKET SAND ART COMPETITION returned!

Much to our customer’s delight, our annual Golden Bucket Sand Art Competition finally returned in the summer and the quality of the entries this year was amazing.  The lucky golden winner in her mermaid boat is pictured here and Kayla not only won the coveted Golden Bucket trophy but a bucket load of prizes from the sponsors we sourced.

         

Kind & Jugend 2022

Thanks to everyone who came to see us at Kind & Jugend, it was fantastic to finally meet up with distributors and retail partners in person and have a good catch-up. 

 LOOKING FORWARD

In January, because of the rising energy costs which are impacting pool water temperatures, we will be focussed on creating messages and promotions that support our Warma products. To mark the start of a term, we will also have a sale in January offering 20% off our baby swimming collection.  We are also planning a new customer newsletter, launching a new Konfidence website, and extending our affiliate marketing programmes – plus lots, lots, more.

 AND FINALLY, please check out all the resources we have created for you in the media centre this year, which includes a host of new lifestyle photography from our photoshoot earlier this year – we hope you agree that there are some stunning new shots of the Splashy™ range, Jacket, Floatsuit and Wetsuits.  

 All that leaves for us to say, is to thank you for your continued support and to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.