Examples of our recent work

When Bodywork Pilates founder, Severine Allocco reached out to us, her business was stable but facing stiff competition in the market and at risk of losing market share. When she founded the studio 20 years prior, there were two studios in all of Brussels. Today, she faces competition from over 70 studios.

So, how do you take a business with a good foundation but has stagnated and transform it to be set-up for long-term growth?

Working through the Brand Game Plan process, we were able to identify a clear win for the business (long-term), and from that, articulate a highly differentiated positioning for the brand.

With that in hand, we interrogated the business to understand where the scale was going to come from. Bodywork has traditionally been a business built on one-on-one private classes. Recognizing the future growth audience as younger and not able to afford private classes, we shifted the strategy to focus on group classes. Off the back of that, we then transformed the product and pricing strategy to ensure the studio retained its premium positioning, but also remained competitive and appealing to this new growth audience.

The next step was to modernize the entire operations of the business which included sourcing and migrating to a fully digital back-end and then integrating that into a redesigned front-end experience including website and mobile app.

Lastly, we needed to go-to-market. With a fresh and modern brand, a fully redesigned website, and newfound energy, we activated a go-to-market strategy across social media, SEO and at a grassroots level.

In the first quarter since the brand transformation and relaunch, the business has seen significant new client growth and client feedback indicates the new positioning and group offerings are indicative of a solid product-market fit and long-term growth.

“Christian has helped our studio in so many different ways. He is an incredible strategic partner who interrogated all aspects of our business strategy, ensured our vision and beliefs were taken on board, rolled up his sleeves to bring it all to life, being always accessible at any time and stays engaged to keep us accountable to the plan! He really has a vision. Thank you so so much!” – Severine Allocco (Founder – Bodywork Pilates)

When Fabric (and mindswarms) founder Tom Bassett called, he was looking for someone to reach out to all the holding company biz dev folks to tell them about his new self-service research product called Fabric. Was that the path to victory? With extensive experience in big agencies and biz dev, we knew market dynamics were shifting. Pitches were becoming fewer. Organic growth was becoming crucial. And his current plan was likely not the path to long-term success. Enter the Brand Game Plan. 

 To get there, we asked some tough questions:

• Are biz dev folks the right audience? Likely not.

• Even if they were, would they answer your call? No.

• Should we target Account and Strategy leads who own the organic growth targets? Yes.

• What’s the best way to get their attention? Social media.

• How do we get them to engage? Differentiated product positioning and execution.

 Our Brand Game Plan for fabric.is helped drive clarity for the brand, created alignment on the marketing strategy, enabled us to develop a social-first B2B creative campaign (LI & IG), and hand it all off to Tom to execute…all of which was completed in 90 days.

"Working with Stone Owl was great. They listened to what we were trying to achieve and then, through a collaborative process, we found the right path to get there. And we're super amped about the results we're seeing so far!" - Tom Bassett

The result: 40 qualified leads in the first month from a B2B LinkedIn and IG activation…and growing.

We were brought in mid-product development on a multi-media publishing platform focused on Western Sports. Our mission was to take over the product strategy and marketing, as well as define the editorial content strategy and build the team.  So far, so good…we’ve grown the subscriber base over 400% in just over 3 months. 

We did it by being an embedded partner, which meant we were empowered to do the following:

• Ensure long-term success aligned to the broader business objectives of the brand with a phased product and marketing strategy

• Streamline development and remove any potential speedbumps by analyzing the current state of the product

• Prioritize decision-making and budget allocations with a project plan to get launch (6 weeks out)

• Make key decisions to optimize the feature set to ensure the best possible MVP at launch

• Quickly and cost-effectively leverage the Stone Owl Collective to develop and deploy a marketing motion

• Maximize every opportunity to bring more subscribers into the brand – and keep them engaged – by having access to learnings and reacting on the fly  

• Adapt and align the strategy to the shifting needs of the business by being attached to the business

“Great work all around Christian. Thank you for being so responsive and nimble to keep trying new things, and work through perceived blocks.” – Emily Castel (Chief Brand and Creative Officer – Teton Ridge)