Tenfold Creative could see their company Marley was quickly losing its hold on the market, so needed a bright new idea to spark the love their customers had for the brand.
The Challenge
For 60 years Marley has been a market leader when it comes to supplying New Zealand with high-quality electrical products. Yet, marketing partner, Tendfold Creative, could see the gap between Marley and its competitors was closing.
With the implementation of a new mandatory system for the manufacture of Conduit Systems from early 2019 – a core Marley range – it was the perfect time to let the market know the inherent value of it conduit over competitors. It was also identified that the absence of strong branding or product names had led the market to identify with functional labelling based on duty rating/ usage and colour (e.g. Medium duty – grey/ orange), as opposed to the Marley brand.
The team made it clear that although they are market leaders, much like the All Blacks, your competitors quickly catch up if you get complacent. In order to stay ahead, Marley needed to make sure what they brought to market came before the new standard was fully adopted/ engrained, meaning a tight six-month turnaround time.
The Response
To achieve this, Marley put an importance on listening to its customers by starting a new conversation about value and what they needed to do in order to remain a technical leader. From that conversation came the need for a new brand – Marley ARMA® Rigid Conduit.
They introduced this new brand to help communicate the benefits of the new standard and how Marley products are aligned to this, all while retaining a premium price position.
The new brand was purposefully made simpler, and introduced new descriptions based on application which in turn helped communicate small details and capture the attention of the market. The move saw 19 products become a core range of just 10 (Stock Keeping Units) SKUs in a very short timeframe. Each SKU needed to be developed and tested before being distributed to its 300 stockists nation-wide.
The Result
The new brand preformed beyond expectations, exceeding pre-set internal sales growth targets. The new brand is another win for Marley who has proved that they don’t stand for commoditisation in their market.
By the time the new standard came into effect in mid-2019 ARMA® was comfortably launched and Marley had clearly communicated to merchants and electricians how the range met the standard and was the top-quality choice.
Entry details
Category: B2B
Company: Marley
Marketing Initiative: ARMA – The Ultimate Defence
Marketing Partners: Tenfold Creative
Judge’s Comments: “Along the way they demonstrated effective execution of the full marketing mix end-to-end, successfully addressed tricky trade challenges, and generated very strong results off the leadership base.”
Finalists: Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Meridian Energy, New Zealand Post
This article was originally published in the December/January 2020 issue of NZ Marketing. You can subscribe to the magazine, here. Or read the other winner stories, here.
