Overview
Puckator is an established international wholesale giftware business with decades of commercial experience, a significant global footprint and a strong reputation within the sector.
The business approached Marketing 101 as it entered its next stage of growth. There was already a great deal of marketing activity taking place. The opportunity was to make it more strategic, more commercially connected and easier to manage across a complex international organisation.
What began as a strategic marketing review has developed into a substantial transformation programme spanning brand, marketing infrastructure, digital, sales enablement and commercial planning. Marketing 101 now continues to support Puckator through an ongoing Fractional CMO relationship.
The Challenge
Marketing had developed across different teams, territories and channels without one overarching commercial framework connecting everything together. The challenge was to create greater clarity around:
- What marketing needed to achieve commercially
- How teams should work together
- How the Puckator story should be communicated consistently
- How digital activity should support the wider buyer journey
- How marketing could better support sales and future growth
What Has Changed
- A clear commercial marketing strategy
- A defined brand and communications framework
- A new marketing operating model
- Stronger alignment between marketing and sales
- A connected digital strategy
- Structured frameworks for launches and key commercial activity
- Clearer governance and planning processes
- An integrated commercial marketing calendar
Our Approach
We designed the engagement as a phased transformation programme. Rather than looking at individual marketing channels in isolation, we assessed how marketing worked across the wider organisation and how effectively it supported Puckator's commercial ambitions.
The work combined strategic audit, senior stakeholder engagement, team interviews, workshops and ongoing collaboration with the business. The result is not a collection of separate recommendations, but a connected commercial marketing system.
The Transformation
1. Establishing the Strategic Baseline
An extensive strategic audit across Puckator’s marketing ecosystem — brand, communications, digital channels, website, CRM, email and social — gave leadership a single strategic view of how marketing operated as a whole for the first time.
2. Creating a Commercial Brand & Communications Strategy
A Brand & Communications Strategy built for the realities of an international wholesale business, giving marketing, sales and digital teams one shared narrative to work from.
3. Redesigning the Marketing Operating Model
A new operating model covering leadership, responsibilities, workflows and cross-functional collaboration, moving the organisation from reactive marketing towards coordinated delivery.
4. Connecting Digital with the Commercial Strategy
A framework showing how website, search, social, CRM and paid activity should work together across the buyer journey — turning individual channels into one connected digital ecosystem.
5. Strengthening Sales & Marketing Alignment
Frameworks giving marketing a more active role in commercial conversations, key accounts and product launches, with clearer messaging tools used consistently across customer interactions.
6. Creating a More Structured Approach to Product & Commercial Activation
Frameworks bringing greater structure to product launches and category activity, with earlier planning and stronger coordination reducing last-minute working.
7. Building a Commercial Marketing Calendar
An integrated commercial marketing calendar connecting marketing activity with key commercial milestones, improving visibility and helping spot conflicts before they become urgent.
Why the Partnership Worked
We Looked Beyond Marketing Channels
Understanding how marketing interacted with the rest of the organisation surfaced structural opportunities that channel analysis alone would never have revealed.
We Brought Relevant Commercial Experience
Extensive experience within giftware, wholesale and product-led businesses meant recommendations were grounded in Puckator’s real operating environment.
We Built on Existing Strengths
The goal was never change for its own sake — Puckator already had strong capability. Our role was providing the strategic architecture to connect it more effectively.
We Stayed to Help Implement It — Marketing 101 now works with Puckator in an ongoing Fractional CMO capacity, supporting the internal team as the new structure, strategy and ways of working become embedded across the organisation.
Results
- Delivered an extensive strategic marketing audit across the organisation
- Created a new Brand & Communications Strategy
- Developed a new marketing structure and operating model
- Strengthened marketing and sales alignment
- Created a joined-up digital and channel strategy
- Developed commercial frameworks supporting launches and customer growth
- Introduced clearer marketing governance and planning
- Developed an integrated commercial marketing calendar
- Moved into ongoing Fractional CMO leadership and implementation support
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