Healthy Future For Fitted Furniture Specialists, Daval

Propaganda first started working with fitted furniture manufacturer, Daval, in 2006, when our Discovery process identified an opportunity for Daval to offer the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom market something special that others couldn’t: Individual Possibilities. The resulting offer – technology driven, made-to-measure and made-to-order furniture – was new, exciting and began to cause a stir, and has directed all brand and business communication since.

Fast-forward to 2010; having successfully ridden the toughest recession ever to impact on the UK furniture industry, it was necessary to understand how Daval’s offer was working for its dealers today, and what opportunities existed for growth in a market that continues to struggle. So, Brand Health 2010 began.

The Propaganda process is designed to ‘take a brand pulse’, provide an independent view into what’s working, what needs to be improved as well what opportunities can be capitalised on. To fully understand the market in relation to Daval’s offer, it was critical to talk to a broad cross-section of key stakeholders; including internal, end-consumers, independent dealers and the media.

Laura Kynaston, Joint Managing Director, Propaganda, was integral to Brand Health 2010, and commented:

“It was hugely revealing for Daval. We know that individuality is key to Daval’s end-consumers, but from talking to the independent dealers, it appears they share the same need. Brand Health uncovered a huge opportunity for Daval to respond with a carefully managed and a targeted key account strategy, which offers individual support solutions for different dealers. It is clear that the one size fits all approach won’t work.”

The Brand Health insights and recommendations resulted in Daval and Propaganda completing a UK-wide tour of the dealers, to understand face-to-face how the brand could support them individually. Following this, a series of new developments have been made, including product, service and marketing support, culminating in a new product preview event through April and May 2010. This was hugely successful and identified over 60 new dealer displays and £900,000 of potential turnover.

Simon Bodsworth, Marketing and Development Manager at Daval concludes:

“The most important learning Daval took from Brand Health was the clarity and direction it gave us moving forwards. There are a million things any business could do but, ultimately, we needed to know which ones would get results – fast, especially whilst we are in a recession.”

It seems that in an uncertain market, Daval is now sure of one thing – it is currently enjoying its fullest order book in 10 months.