Jonsson Journey
My Jonsson Journey began in 2018 when I was contracted to Jonsson Workwear to assist in their digital enhancements along with assisting with building their new eCommerce website. Going into such a big brand I was nervous about what my skills could bring to the table. I was pleasantly surprised when I realised there were a lot of skills I could offer. I started where I always do: a general look at the brand's current online strategies. I found that while Jonsson Workwear was utilising all major online platforms, not many were being used with a specific brand strategy. For instance, Google Local was set up for the head office, but not the depots. This one change in online setup saw a huge increase in their depot sales, so please everyone understand from the get-go: digital marketing does not only support online lead generation and sales, it is also able to assist in in-store turnover and experiences. I then reworked the PPC campaigns to assist with the new digital strategy I had put forward. This strategy was very fruitful and we saw great results, increasing company turnover by 10% in 4 months.
We've Upped Our Game
One of my proudest pieces of work in my career thus far is the launch concept and storyboard I wrote for the Jonsson Workwear online store. The launch slogan was "We've Upped Our Game". The thought process started when the sponsorship team suggested I make use of the Lions rugby players and Sharks for the online launch. It snowballed in my brain from there and was produced into the awesome advert below that was broadcast on DStv during Super Rugby 2019.
In-store sales assist
One of the areas I worked on was the social media strategy. Jonsson Workwear has a campaign called "Super Saturday", an in-store promotion to assist with driving customers into the store. In 2018 Jonsson Workwear featured their first Super Saturday on their social media page, making use of the Facebook events feature. After loading the event information, I would then do my magic with a bit of spend and target the post accordingly. At this time they had one of their busiest Super Saturdays to date. This is another simple yet useful way a brand is able to use online strategies to assist in increasing store sales.
Product Launches: "Guess What's Next" campaign
I personally feel like brands could leverage their new product launches a bit more online. While at Jonsson Workwear they launched many new products, and one of my favourite online product launch campaigns I worked on was the new trainer range they released, called the AT18. Competitions are always a crowd-pleaser, but competitions while promoting or creating awareness of upcoming products is how you fully leverage an online social media competition. The concept was simple. A blurry image of the new shoe, multiple-choice options for product descriptions, 3 social media posts, with 3 winners announced each week, a month before the shoes were available in-store. The week the shoes arrived in-store, a product video was released on social media, which was then Ninja-ed to assist the sales department, as a marketing department would do.
Click here to access the social media campaign
Integration and innovation
When we began building the Jonsson Workwear online store the scope of the mission was unclear. What they did know was they wanted to utilise their current hardware and software in the business to run the online store. They also wanted it to be fully automated on the back end. This is a beautiful way to set up an online store. It is also a difficult way, as the team has to integrate the online store with a warehouse running huge scales of packing and sorting on state-of-the-art systems that were not necessarily built for sorting online orders directly from the WHM system. Long story short, 1 year and about 20 people later, the Jonsson Workwear online store is up and running. It was a privilege being a part of the epic team that did this website.
In conclusion
I loved my time at Jonsson Workwear, and feel blessed as an entrepreneur to have worked for one of SA's greatest entrepreneurs, Nick Jonsson. It was a great point in my career and a good confidence booster in regards to the skill set and knowledge I have gained over the years within my industry. I have also been inspired by a quote from a book Nick Jonsson wrote for staff with regards to Blog About Business and the design elements and approach. The quote reads in part: "Take a fresh approach. Bring something new to the business. Don't go for the expected or safe."