grey wrk

Collateral

grey wrk was looking for a way to modernize its brand image and extend their marketing reach in an industry that just doesn’t believe in marketing. Ben, the shop owner, is the first to admit that as an industry, the woodworkers/custom furniture building community has done a terrible job getting the word out about their wares. In fact, most woodworkers avoid advertising/marketing altogether, so it remains mostly unknown to the general public, which didn’t make our job any easier.

After several high-octane meetings with Ben, we were able to zero in on their core target audience. We then turned our attention to scheduling interviews with homeowners who frequent the handful of shops we identified as competitors. The interviews were very informative, and two very interesting key insights were uncovered. One, money is not an issue for this target audience. They are comfortable spending top dollar for furniture they like and want. Second, they shared with us they tend to be happy with the furniture they have, but most would have loved to make a few tweaks, like they would have preferred lighter wood on their chairs, wish the table they bought was a little longer to seat eight not just six, noticed later the chairs weren’t built all that well and wouldn’t last, etc. Those tweaks would have made the furniture perfect. So with those key insights, we set out to craft grey wrk’s story.

We wanted the marketing to tell the story of a return to craftsmanship and quality, which has become a dying craft. In a nutshell, we wanted to take on the mass-produced furniture companies that appear to have taken over. We came up with a concept that is a natural fit for the story we were trying to tell … alchemy—the power to transform something (in their case, wood) in a mysterious way.