B&Q - How advertising helped B&Q do it

Nicholas Docherty and Steve Hopkins

1996-2000 advertising for B&Q. Objectives: to increase spend per consumer and attract customers from other DIY stores at a time when the market had matured.
Agency: Bates UKAuthors: Nicholas Docherty and Steve Hopkins

How Advertising Helped B&Q Do It

Introduction

The DIY market grew rapidly in the 1980s and B&Q grew with it.

However, market growth slowed in the late 1980s. As Mintel forecast in their 1987 report, 'the industry has reached a state of maturity in which steady growth rather than rapid expansion is the norm'. 

Mintel was right. The number of people doing DIY declined throughout the 1990s, form 67% to 62%, as Figure 1 demonstrates. 

B&Q faced the challenge of a maturing market by setting out to...

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