On one of the Olympic Morning segments with Lisa LaFlamme of CTV during the Vancouver Olympics, I heard the anecdote about a seven-year-old who asked his mom why the athletes were given broccoli (the green Olympic bouquet) along with their medals. It made me think. Does the incorporation of flowers at non-floral events such as the Olympics, Spruce Meadows horse shows, and the like, really increase floral consumption? Here’s what your fellow florists had to say:
“Flowers should be present at any function. They add beauty, substance, colour, formality and grace. The more flowers are in the public eye, the more flowers are in the mind for gift giving, in recognition of special occasions and decorating.
“Having said that, I don’t think that we can see an increase in floral consumption because flowers are present at the Olympics and Spruce Meadows. To increase consumption, we need to see flowers casually and ubiquitously in the home – mirroring the European attitude. As florists, we need to take a bouquet to our dinner hostess, or to the office on our next doctor’s visit or place a floral arrangement on our table the next time we go out to a restaurant. And if you really want to make a statement, take a single flower to a friend at their workplace and listen to the oohs and aahs. Picture a small vase of fresh daisies in the washroom or a flowering plant in a beautiful ceramic pot sitting in the front window of your home.
“Flowers present at public events like the Olympics and horse shows do not affect us negatively. Any presence of floral product makes a positive statement. It will not greatly increase floral consumption nor will it hinder it. Constant . . . makes familiar . . . creates a reaction . . . increases floral product consumption.”
– Pam Goold, Goold’s Nurseries, Sussex, N.B.
“I was out to dinner at a favourite restaurant during the Olympics. As we were leaving, we were chatting with the owner and he mentioned the “broccoli” bouquets. They honestly thought it was broccoli! I explained the flowers, but don’t know how much he would remember. Sometimes I feel like we’re speaking another language when we say the names of flowers.
“I did see several articles about the bouquets. I think the “helping disadvantaged women” angle was a good hook.
“But does exposure like that increase sales? I really doubt you could draw a direct line from the Olympics to sales in a local store. Oh well, the example of flowers as a celebratory gift is really positive. I hope when people have special occasions, they think of flowers as an important part of the celebration.”
– Lynn Martin Freeman, Martin’s, the Flower People, Toronto, Ont.
“I believe that with flowers being given out to medal winners, the premise is set for us shops to utilize the opportunity to market ourselves, and our industry. With the buzz of such events as the Olympics, people are concentrating more on how many medals are won, how many of those are gold, etc. It is up to us to market through face-to-face interactions with our customers, as well as other methods (i.e., e-mail marketing, blogs, Facebook, etc.) to bring up the uniqueness of those bouquets and get people to think about the flowers. Perhaps we could offer our own versions of the medal bouquets to our customers or offer an incentive to come into the shop when Canada competes in an event. I believe that, in this manner, events like these increase floral consumption. We cannot sit back and expect that people will see the arrangements and think that they need flowers. It is up to us to fertilize the seed planted by these events.”
– Jennifer Jones Pederson, Funky Petals Flower Shop, Westlock, Alta.
“I believe that events of that magnitude (the Olympics), make our business. It’s about celebrating the bloom. I didn’t do those (arrangements), but I reaped the benefit by marketing similar products. During the Olympics all lime green bouquets were two for one in my shop.
“There was a floral ceremony, wow, how good was that for our industry? The women who made the bouquets are a feel-good story. It brings all this energy back to our industry. There will be floral ceremonies for the Summer Olympics again in 2012 – what can we do with that? It works for you if you make it work for you!”
– Joel-Marc Frappier, cafa, mfa, La Maison de fleurs, Gatineau, Que.
"I think beautiful flowers featured on televised major events do increase floral awareness and consequently impact floral consumption in a positive way. Unfortunately, this was not the case at the recent Vancouver Olympics. For whatever reasons, perhaps having to do with the environmental movement, they chose to go with monochromatic bouquets in green. As beautiful as they might of been up close it simply didn't translate onto television. The young seven-year-old who said the flowers looked like broccoli unfortunately was right. Why they didn't choose something bright beautiful and vibrant, to really showcase the flowers, I don’t know. We have this beautiful product that comes in a huge variety of colours and textures that combined with world-class floral designs would have been a wonderful and positive statement about our industry."
– Heather de Kok AAF AIFD PFCI, Grower Direct, Edmonton
"I don't think the use of flowers at non floral events like the Olympics, Westminster Dog Show, horse shows, etc increases floral consumption at all except for the florist that won the contract. I would say a case in point is that Valentine's Day was the worst Valentine’s I have ever experienced as far as sales go. It might be due to the fact that Victoria is relatively close to Vancouver and Whistler and a lot of people were attending the events. They possibly even bought tickets as Valentine's presents rather than flowers. I'm not sure if the Olympics or our economy was the reason for the lacklustre sales but whatever the reason the Olympics certainly did not boost sales.
Similarly when the Westminster Dog Show was on I did not notice any increase or decrease in sales. These types of events might possibly remind people of the beauty of flowers and have some kind of effect over time but I have not seen any immediate results."
– Dianne Kade, Artistry in Bloom, Victoria, B.C.
As a side note, we at Canadian Florist discovered that the Olympic bouquets did pique the curiosity of web users. Our story on the Olympic flowers attracted 33,000 unique visitors to our website as surfers Googled and searched to find out more about those “broccoli” flowers.
Visit our blog to have your own say on this topic.
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