There was a crisis facing Ireland’s Lisnavagh Estate. Their sawmill could not afford to continue losing money. It needed a new strategy or face being closed down with the loss of jobs and capital investment.

And so it was, in June 2008, TMF’s Managing Director, Matthew Rymer, was asked to fly over to advise whether it was time to cut losses and staff or whether there may be a solution to take the sawmill into profit.

He recognised there was no focus to what the sawmill made (ranging as it did from bespoke kitchens to roof timber). However, he believed its unique selling point (that every plank is referenced to the actual tree it was sourced from) was under exploited. If only the sawmill could focus on one simple product requiring little machining cost and exploit its USP to position itself as a premium in a mainstream market. Within 48 hours, and before he left Ireland, he drew up a business and marketing strategy titled ‘Bunbury Boards.’

Growing….

Within thee months The Marketing Farm team:

• Developed a brand identity
• Conceived, sourced and created premium packaging
• Published trade sales guides
• Developed a fully interactive website
• Developed point-of-sale and trade exhibition support
• Specified and developed a bespoke software system allowing the sawmills to simply load up tree references and images from which tree reports are automatically generated and accessed by the end user via unique references applied to the Boards.

John Lewis…

We were excited to learn that the Board collections had been re-ordered three times from the first retailer in Dublin. We were even more excited to learn that the first trade show generated orders as serious of orders. In 2009, John Lewis placed a considerable order and the Bunbury Board is now stocked across the UK.

Could the humble chopping board turn round the fortunes of The Lisnavagh Estate?

This is what makes The Marketing Farm so special. We develop concepts and strategies to help businesses grow and execute these with vigour, enthusiasm and dedication at least cost.