Coats launches new crafts web portal
- 20 Jan 2014
Coats plc, the world’s leading industrial thread and consumer textile crafts business, is launching makeitcoats.com, a new web portal that provides an unparalleled digital experience to inspire, inform and teach textile crafters with a passion for sewing, quilting, knitting, crocheting and embroidery.
The portal includes over 250 crafting projects, 90 films and more than 4,000 product pages as well as inspirational mood boards, articles and questions and answers. The responsive design means that the content fully adapts itself to be viewed equally well on a desktop computer, tablet or smartphone. There is a focus on user generated content with crafters being able to add individual comments and ratings to featured patterns, products and projects.
On entering the site, crafters can choose to explore four main areas:
Discover more about hundreds of free crafting projects, articles, inspirational moodboards of themed collections and meet designers.
Learn a new technique through the virtual tutorials, how to care and repair and have questions answered in the ‘frequently asked questions’ section eg ‘how do I make a hem invisible?’
Share through blogs and events related to the world of crafting.
Product explorer provides a guide through a comprehensive catalogue of Coats Crafts products.
The makeitcoats.com portal brings to life the new Coats brand identity, designed to open the door to a world of inspiration and creativity and to bring together, under one roof, some of the most respected brands within the textile crafts industry (for instance Anchor, Red Heart, Rowan and Schachenmayr). The call to action ‘make it’ encourages consumers to choose Coats as their trusted craft partner and places it at the heart of the textiles crafts making process.
Users can also choose to navigate the site by crafting technique (sewing and quilting, knitting, crocheting or embroidery) or to immerse themselves in the creative worlds of the FreeSpirit and Anchor brands. The initial focus for makeitcoats.com will predominantly be on sewing and quilting, crochet and embroidery, and will provide links with our existing handknitting brands sites (Red Heart, Rowan and Schachenmayr).
Frazer Smith, Chief Commercial Officer, Coats plc, said: ‘Our makeitcoats.com web portal builds on the recent launch of the new Coats Crafts branding. The portal provides inspiration, guidance and support to crafters and confirms Coats’ reputation as the number one global player in the textiles crafts market.’
The site has dedicated areas for both the UK and the US markets, where the content is tailored towards the most popular types of crafting in each market. The UK site has additional content on crochet and embroidery while the US site has a greater focus on sewing and quilting. Users can toggle between the content of two sites via a button on the navigation bar.
To find out more visit makeitcoats.com
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ENDS
For more information contact:
Kristina Blissett, Communications Manager kristina.blissett@coats.com
T +44 (0)208 210 5084, M +44 (0)7714 539887
Notes to Editors
About Coats Crafts
Coats Crafts is the world's leading consumer textile crafts business. Its history is interwoven with many innovations in knitting, crochet, quilting, embroidery and sewing dating back to the beginning of the industrial revolution.
Our well-known brands, which include Rowan, Red Heart, Freespirit, Anchor and Schachenmayr, have been inspiring generations of crafters around the world who have looked to Coats for quality and inspiration for over 200 years.
About Coats
With a rich heritage dating back to the 1750s, Coats is the world's leading industrial thread and consumer textile crafts business, at home in more than 70 countries, employing over 20,000 people across six continents. Revenues in 2012 were US$1.7bn.
Our well-known brands and strong relationships with customers and consumers mean our products and services meet current and future needs. Our company-wide understanding of our business partners and consumers, coupled with the deep expertise of our people, builds trust and certainty.
Coats’ pioneering history and innovative culture ensure the company continues leading the way around the world: providing complementary and value added products and services to the apparel and footwear industries; extending the crafts offer into new markets and online; and applying innovative techniques to develop products in new areas such as tracer threads, aramids and fibre optics.
- One in five garments on the planet is held together using Coats’ thread
- 75 million car airbags are made using Coats’ thread every year
- Coats produces enough yarn to knit 65 million scarves a year
- In three and a half hours, Coats makes enough thread to go to the moon and back
- 300 million pairs of shoes are made every year using Coats’ thread
- One million teabags using Coats’ thread are brewed every 10 minutes
- Thousands of surgical operations take place every day using Coats’ thread
- Thomas Edison used Coats’ thread in 1879 to invent the light bulb
- Coats produces enough thread to reach around the Equator every 11 minutes
- Coats is the second largest and fastest growing global zip manufacturer
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