Diagnose
Beldam Crossley, part of the Pexion holdings group, is a manufacturer of gasket and sealing products and was established over 100 years ago.
Their route to market and their audience is a broad mix including direct to manufacturers and reached through a network of international distributors and a UK network of wholly owned outlets, including companies operating in a diverse range of industries.
Products included a wide range of high volume/low margin items together with a lesser number with a low margin but of significantly higher value.
However, the brand had now become tired, dated and had lost its way. With no marketing investment, it now found itself competing with low-end distributors as well as high-end manufacturers and sat in the middle of the market with no differentiation or core proposition.
The company had recently undergone an MBI and had ambitious visions for the company’s growth. Their aim was to achieve a PE of 20% within 5 years with a focus on driving EBITDA.
Clearly something radical had to be done to achieve this increase in value and bottom line improvement.
Advise
The key to the marketing strategy lay in defining the correct positioning of the brand and to identify a gap in the market where they could become acutely relevant and develop a communication strategy around this directly to the target audiences.
During the initial stages of a ClockWiseTM Brand Development Programme, we worked with the client to establish the foundations upon which to build – where were their primary sources of value, which product lines offered the best opportunities and were most likely to be future-proof and which sectors and geographies offered the best opportunities.
Further audits and profiling exercises gave us a huge body of information from which to distil the key insights that would form the basis of the brand strategy going forward. We also developed a clear set of brand values that would form a key part of taking the company forward – to both internal and external audiences.
A key element identified to drive value through the business and achieve the financial goals was the need to invest in the development of the small number of low volume but high value product brands.
These brands would then be marketed to specialised sectors such as aerospace, power generation and oil and gas. This would mean a change in the structure of the company but would be a lucrative strategy.
Create
Beldam Crossley’s seals are designed to perform to the ultimate standards in high-risk, life-critical applications such as oil and gas rigs and aerospace where failure is not an option.
To visually depict their vital role within a major installation, we created a new, unique typeface and highlighted the crossbar of the letter ‘A ‘in BELDAM in a contrasting colour. This was underpinned by the positioning line ‘a vital part of your success’ reflecting their total involvement in a project and support from start to finish – and beyond.
We carried this look and styling through to a website which offered the user an online brand experience of expertise. The strategy behind this was the fact we didn’t want to produce a mere online catalogue of products, we wished to position Beldam Crossley as experts in specific sectors of industry.
We structured the site to highlight these sectors and devised an ‘Ask the Expert’ link, allowing the customer to seek expert information and advice and actually interact directly with the company.
The ‘expert’ theme was supported by a suite of literature and trade advertising in relevant sector-specific media.
Measure
- Informed M&A strategy led to divestment of commodity business
- Recruitment of distributors in an international basis has increased by 15%
- 20% year on year organic growth
- Secured contracts for two specific target markets – the US Military and Rolls Royce Aerospace
- Beldam Crossley is now a leading supplier of best in class products in niche, high value applications such as Formula 1
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