Iconic local company Gallagher Group is synonymous with invention on the farm – and has a flourishing security technology business. How does it compete with the big budgets of global rivals? We had a chat over the fence with Security CMO Merv Williams.
Headquartered in Hamilton, with more than 1,300 employees in 15 countries and selling to nearly 160, Gallagher Group is one of Aotearoa’s largest privately held companies. Ask the average New Zealander about it and they might mention the electric fence famously invented by its founder Bill Gallagher in the late 1930s.
Gallagher Animal Management still does fencing (electric and virtual), along with a range of other on-farm tech solutions around farm management, animal health and water monitoring, but some Kiwis may not be aware there’s also Gallagher Security, a security systems specialist that accounts for about half of the Gallagher business and is growing rapidly.
“We’ve been around for 85 years, and the security arm of Gallagher has been around for 35 of those,” says Gallagher Security Chief Marketing Officer, Merv Williams.
“We have market dominance in New Zealand and Australia and are an aggressive challenger in areas such as Asia, the Americas, the UK and Europe. For me and for the global Security marketing team here in New Zealand, the biggest objective is clear – growing market share.”
Broad scope
Williams was promoted to CMO of the Security business at the start of 2024, having joined Gallagher two years earlier as Brand & PR Manager. Of his 27-strong marketing team, 17 are based in New Zealand, while the rest are spread across the company’s other key markets. Unlike his colleagues on the other side of the Gallagher fence, his team are targeting a mainly urban rather than rural audience.
“Our security solutions are trusted to protect hospitals, universities, government and commercial sites, you name it, right across the spectrum,” he says. “We’re one of the few companies on the planet that meets the highest certifications in the security space, and it’s come from little old New Zealand, which is super cool.”
These products cover a vast range of uses, among them perimeter security and alarms, and access control and mobile-based solutions. During the Covid era, Gallagher even developed systems that could detect the vaccination status of people looking to enter a door in a facility.
This is far from the glamorous world of retail campaigns; for Gallagher Security’s marketing team, the focus is very much B2B, and the audience is primarily their channel partners and end-user decision-makers. Williams has a strong pedigree in blue-collar marketing. Prior to joining Gallagher, he was General Manager Marketing at sealants and adhesives specialist Holdfast, staying on in the role when the business was purchased by Belgium based Soudal in 2018. He also has agency experience, having worked at Hamilton-based Bettle & Associates from 2011 to 2016, including a stint as GM, after Bettle bought his previous employer, Brandish.
Williams’ background has given him broad scope in terms of different markets and different customer needs, which he believes has set him up nicely for his current role. “We’re not selling heavily into the end-consumer space with mobile phones or craft beer or a great pair of jeans, and sometimes I’d love to be doing that, but B2B poses its own unique marketing challenges that require a different kind of creativity, which is fun.”
Outcomes in focus
One of the big changes at Gallagher Security since Williams joined has been to speak less about the solution – “which is fantastic” – and more about the human aspect of what the product delivers, he says. He uses the example of the education sector, which Gallagher services all the way from primary schools to universities.
“The end result that we want to speak to is this amazing story of how we send students home safe and sound to their parents at the end of the day.” This approach gives Gallagher a point of difference in the jargon-plagued tech space, he says. “So many people speak about the technology, and they say, ‘Here’s this box, guess what’s inside it?’”
Williams is also keenly focused on Gallagher Security’s brand, crediting influential thinkers like Peter Field and Les Binet for shaping his personal marketing philosophy. “Their work in and around the importance of brand and brand building is fundamental to the view I take on marketing,” he says. “I strongly believe that executing in the brand space first will see rewards and wins all round.”
While the importance of brand is something almost all marketers agree on, Williams admits budgets are always going to be an issue when going up against giant, multinational competitors. “We’re dealing with some significant wallet sizes – global companies that are speaking in the tens of millions of dollars in terms of what they invest into their marketing. The challenge has been: how can we execute to achieve some fantastic positioning without the same level of spend?”
Being the experts
One of the more budget-friendly brand boosters has been developing a whole strategy around thought leadership, to position Gallagher Security as experts in this ever-evolving space. “One of the advantages we’ve got is having people who’ve been in this business for 30 years and who know the security- solutions business like no one else,” says Williams. “We’re putting those people front and centre, to sell messages of thought leadership to the audience within the C-suite. We’ve also done some amazing security-industry research, which we’ve then pumped out to the global marketplace. It’s had the beautiful by-product that we’re presented as trusted thought leaders and the experts in this space.”
As with any B2B business, the next step is the knock on the door. Williams says it’s a two-phase process, with the marketing team’s brand work setting the sales team up for success. “By pushing brand, we’re trying to soften the C-suite up for a conversation, so that we’re a known quantity, we’ve established a reputation, we’ve influenced via thought leadership. Then there’s a contact point and they think, ‘Oh yeah, I know about you guys’, and we’ve got a door already open for them.”
This was first published in our March/April 2024 issue.
