Stars for Europe (SfE) is an initiative set up by a group of poinsettia breeders to promote poinsettias across Europe. In 2011, SfE successfully applied for EU funding for the pan-European poinsettia campaign "Stars for Europe - Stars Unite". The UK was chosen to be a part of the campaign due to promising sales potential. In the UK we buy on average 0.1 poinsettias per person, as opposed to the 0.4/0.5 bought in Germany. The goal of the EU campaign is to stabilize the price level and raise total sales of poinsettias.

This year, for the fourth year running, Stars for Europe have been promoting poinsettias to consumers in the run-up to Christmas by showing them that, far from being a granny plant, they’re fresh and stylish and endlessly versatile.

Peter Seabrook and The Sun have carried out the successful Poinsettias for Schools campaign for the third year in a row, giving mini plants to pupils of primary schools across the UK, and providing larger plants to decorate their Christmas plays. This year, some of the schools have taken their plants to local retirement homes to bring some Christmas cheer to the residents.

This year has been the year of the Lonely Poinsettia, where florists all across the UK have been decorating a poinsettia plant (or making a poinsettia cut flower bouquet), wrapping it up well, and leaving it for someone to adopt. There have been heart-warming stories from florists and finders alike, showing the power of a small, bright red, gesture of kindness from a stranger.

There’s been an on-going consumer press campaign, resulting in poinsettias featuring in high-end lifestyle titles such as The English Home, House Beautiful, Homemaker, Fusion Flowers and Period Ideas, not to mention a fantastic slideshow on the Telegraph website.

Florist magazine commissioned a photoshoot of new, fun, saleable designs using poinsettias for their Autumn/Winter issue, to encourage florists to make the most of them as a low-cost, but very high-impact cut flower. Check out page 23 of the digital magazine.

And to top it all off, on Thursday, to celebrate International Poinsettia Day, designer florist Neill Strain constructed a six-foot high Christmas Star out of hundreds of poinsettias, to the astonishment of press and passers-by alike.

But it’s not too late to get in on the action. Stars for Europe have a wealth of materials on their website to help you market your own plants.

There are online banners and apps for your website, and a fun tool for putting Christmas decorations on your facebook page.  There are hundreds of high resolution, stylish images for you to use in your marketing, and special guidelines for getting the press interested in your business. There’s downloadable, professional-looking POS material you can customise with your own information, and films with ideas for poinsettia displays. 

And you know what? It’s all absolutely free. Why not take a few minutes to see what’s on www.sfe-web.com. As an added incentive, if you use the materials on the website, and send us a picture or link to what you’ve done, you could win fabulous poinsettia umbrellas for you and your staff*.

*Maximum three per shop