Independent agency, Bright/Shift, used GWI to shape a high-impact go-to-market strategy for their sustainable furniture client, generating 41k in revenue in the first month.

“Using GWI to generate relevant insights or build up personas gives us a competitive edge. It shows them we’re all about performance, driving results, and helping our clients achieve what they want to achieve.”

As a social impact marketing agency, Bright/Shift work exclusively with brands that are trying to trigger a positive change in the world, be that ethically, environmentally or socially.

In 2021, Bright/Shift team were approached by a family-run furniture company with a problem to solve: how to launch their new direct-to-consumer brand.

The challenge

Positioning the brand right with very little insight

Despite the client having an awesome product, there were significant challenges when it came to nailing the brand positioning.

Launching a new brand into a new market is hugely exciting, but an uphill task if you don’t have the right data and audience insights to leverage.

Knowing who your prospective customers are, what matters to them and how best to reach them is critical in driving D2C sales. Without any existing data or campaigns to take learnings from, brands can run the risk of simply ‘guessing’ what the best approach is.

The action

Uncovering strategy-defining insights

Bright/Shift turned to GWI as part of their discovery process, gathering insights and conducting target audience analysis that would form the backbone of their strategy.

“When you’re launching a brand from scratch, you need somewhere where you can get solid, reputable data in order to start making initial decisions that you can trust. And that’s why we use GWI.” says Toby Stewart, Founder of Bright/Shift.

The insights they uncovered were instrumental in defining every element of the launch campaign, from brand positioning and messaging, to creative and promotion. “We combined insights on competitors from the market and GWI, and built our entire strategy around it.”

With their new insights, Bright/Shift could source content creators they knew would resonate with their client’s audience and brief them on exactly the type of content they wanted to see.

Bright/Shift used GWI to identify the brand’s ideal target audience, and which USPs to lead with in their messaging, based on what matters most to them. Here’s a snapshot of some of the pivotal insights they uncovered that shaped their overall strategy:

Other key insights they uncovered

1. Renters want to make their home more personable by getting new furniture.
2. They’re living in urban areas and spend a lot of time online so reviews, social proof and ability to discover and speak to brands on social is important to them.
3. They will actively look for an eco-friendly product but will be influenced by price and online reviews more than anything else.

“We found that while sustainability is one of their key drivers, this audience is very sensitive to price. Understanding the green value of the product is key for them, alongside a good price/value ratio and consumer proofing through reviews.”

Armed with these insights, Bright/Shift had everything they needed to execute on their strategy, and the results were astounding.

The result

Driving 41k in revenue in the first month

Bright/Shift’s initial predictions were that it would take around two months to start generating revenue, but sales started coming in just two weeks into the campaign.

By the end of month one, the campaign had generated £41k in revenue.

After testing different lengths and formats, they identified their best performing paid asset, a 30-second UGC video, promoted in the main feed.

It went on to generate a CPC of £0.15, a CTR of 6%, and £40k in revenue within a 3-month period.

In fact, 60-70% of all paid advertising revenue came from user-generated style ads that Bright/Shift produced based on the initial insights from GWI.

Overall, this was a great success for both the client and Bright/Shift. The client found a like-minded partner, who not only aligned with their brand mission, but more importantly, helped them to break into the market and drive significant revenue from the get-go.

“As a small but growing agency, it’s easy to look at GWI and its reflective investment as something that’s quite scary. However, investing in GWI has been one of the best decisions we could have made. It has allowed us to establish and grow relationships in an extremely effective way, and most importantly, it’s allowed us to do truly impactful work on behalf of our partners.”