Groves Nurseries has been praised for its Santa Quest fundraiser and has won the award for best social media marketing in the Greatest Christmas Awards 2020.

The national awards are run by Garden Trade News, a trade magazine for the garden centre industry, and showcase the best of what garden centres have to offer up and down the country.

Like the rest of retail, garden centres have had to adapt to the challenges of Covid-19 so the awards this year were a little bit different.

A Santa experience has always been part of Christmas at Groves and offering this in a Covid secure way was always going to be a challenge.

The team at Groves used a combination of social media and in-store video to get Santa's message across. Children could watch a video on arrival and then collect a map to take part in a trial around the garden centre finding all the things Santa would need for his journey on Christmas Eve.

Stephen Banks of Watershed PR assisted with the digital content helping the team create a series of three online videos, two in-store videos as well as a live Facebook broadcast where children could ask questions to Santa himself.

Upon receiving the award, Charlie Groves, manager of Groves Nurseries, said: "It is a fantastic achievement for the team that we have won this.

"It took a fair bit of work to put on, from carving out and painting the clues by hand, to designing the trail and map and shooting and editing the videos, so to get some recognition for that for the team means a lot."

The judges said: "The story, content and staged delivery of this campaign stood out as an effective, well thought out and delivered project.

"As a consequence of not being able to run their Christmas Grotto, Groves jumped into action and created an amazing virtual Santa experience using social media to engage locally."

The Santa's Quest raised a total of £1,140 for the Dorset Children's Foundation.