⎯ Case Study — Outdoor & Lifestyle
One story. One voice. Five markets. We built the strategic plan and the marketing system to make it stick.
Industry
Outdoor Apparel & Equipment
Markets
NZ · Australia · UK · Scandinavia · Germany
Scope
Strategy to Execution
Partnership
Embedded Strategic Partner
⎯ The Brief
A brand with 30 years of earned trust — ready to scale it globally.
Where They Were
Swazi makes some of the best outdoor gear in the world. Hunters, farmers, and outdoors people across New Zealand, the UK, Scandinavia, Germany, and Australia know it, trust it, and wear it hard. The brand equity is real and hard-earned built over three decades in the field, not in a marketing department.
The opportunity was clear: take a brand with serious foundations and build the strategic infrastructure to match its ambition. A unified plan the whole team here and internationally could execute together. Clear commercial goals the board could hold the business to. And a brand story told the same way, everywhere Swazi shows up.
What We Were Brought In To Do
Swazi engaged Nice Marketing as a strategic partner not an external agency. Embedded in the business, working alongside leadership, the marketing team, and international partners to build the 2026 strategic plan and the marketing system to execute it.
The scope ran from board-level planning through to content production on the ground shoot direction, paid media, and ensuring every piece of activity connected back to the single brand theme driving the year.
⎯ What We Did
Built the plan. Then built the system to execute it.
01
Annual Strategic Plan
Built the 2026 Swazi strategic plan from the ground up, the annual theme, commercial goals, brand pillars, and market priorities across New Zealand, Australia, the UK, Scandinavia, and Germany. Presented at board level.
02
Brand & Positioning
Defined the single brand story "Reliable then, reliable now, reliable for whatever comes next" and built the framework to ensure it was told consistently across every touchpoint, in every market, by every person in the business.
03
Marketing Plan & Calendar
Translated the strategy into a practical, actionable marketing plan channel by channel, market by market giving the internal team clear priorities, timelines, and activity to execute throughout the year.
04
Team Alignment
Worked directly with the Swazi team here and overseas to ensure the strategy wasn't just a document. Regular working sessions, clear communication frameworks, and a plan the whole business could own and execute.
05
Content Production & Paid Media
Briefed and produced content end-to-end shoot direction, on-location production, and post-production ensuring every asset was cohesive with the brand theme. Paid media across Meta and Google built around the content and audience priorities across all five markets.
06
Board-Level Reporting
Established clear commercial baselines and measurable goals giving leadership and the board actual numbers to track each month. Growth targets, engagement benchmarks, and channel performance all tied to the business plan.
⎯ The Outcome
A strategy the whole business is now executing — here and internationally.
The 2026 strategic plan is now the operating document for the entire Swazi business. The marketing team has a clear annual plan priorities, channels, and activity mapped out and connected to the brand theme driving everything. Leadership and the board have commercial baselines and growth targets that mean something, tracked month by month.
Across five markets, the Swazi story is now being told consistently the same voice, the same positioning, the same visual language whether that's a retail touchpoint in New Zealand, paid media in the UK, or content landing in Scandinavia.
That's what a strategic partnership looks like at this level. Not campaigns delivered from the outside a plan built from the inside, with the team, that the whole business owns.