Drum Marketing Award Finalists for Long-term Strategy

By Reena Gjoci, Everglade Windows

Everglade Windows is a finalist at the one of the UK’s most prestigious marketing awards for long-term marketing strategy. We didn’t win, but what a night.

Now in its 10th year, the Drum Marketing Awards celebrate the best campaigns in the UK.  Judged by senior marketers from blue-chip companies, they are hotly contested and this year The Drum received nearly 600 entries.

Everglade Windows was up against campaigns for well-known brands such as Football Manager, Brewdog, Santander and Eurotunnel.  For an SME in the glazing industry to be listed alongside these household names highlights that marketing isn’t a matter of big budgets but of sound strategic planning. We describe it as legendary. Becoming a legendary business relies on having a heritage that’s worth talking about, delivering what customers want today, and an impressive plan for the future. It also needs great marketing to communicate those qualities.

Our long term strategy is all about helping our customers grow, profitably. Adding new products, services and support, means we all become legendary together.

We believe we are finalists alongside these national and international brands because between 2011 and 2015, we created and delivered a strategy to position Everglade as a visionary company. Our objective was to introduce the Leadership Team, Yogesh Gopal, Jay Patel, Jayesh Hirani and me, to complement the directors.

The five-year plan, developed with Balls2 Marketing, kicked off with an analysis of the current market, to identify trends for the future and how Everglade could differentiate itself in an industry that doesn’t like change.

The heritage of the company is important to us. We have 35 successful years behind us, and it was vital that we built on this. Our level of manufacturing expertise and the way we look after customers, makes us stand out from competitors.

Our first main task was to launch a new product. We created aïr, a completely new retail brand for highly engineered wide span doors. These were not what most customers would have expected from Everglade. We didn’t want any preconceptions of Everglade getting in the way. That’s why we launched it without the Everglade name attached.

The aïr brand, and the intrigue around the launch, went brilliantly for us. We couldn’t have asked for better results. There was a lot of speculation in the industry about who was behind aïr. We managed to keep everything under wraps until the official launch. And that’s just one example.

We believe working with a marketing agency is no different from working with our customers.  We’re looking for long-term partners and wish to create that sense of belonging in everything we do.  Our marketing complements the work we’ve done in recent years to drive business growth and support our customers, such as improvements in operations, investments and sales strategy.

As well as unveiling our aïr brand, highlights have included the new brand identity we devised for the 35^th anniversary and our concept, ‘Made in London,’ designed to reflect the shared affinity between Everglade and our home city: inclusive, vibrant, in-the-know and always ahead of the game.

It has paid off.  The business is growing fast and we’ve taken on more of the day to day running of the business. We might be coming to the end of our first five years, but now we’re planning for the next five years and beyond.

Yogesh and I went to the Drum Marketing Awards Ceremony in London with Sarah Ball and Simon Kinnear from Balls2 Marketing. Even though we didn’t win it was a brilliant night.