It comes after Simon McKenzie’s position as managing director of the firm was finally made official this month, after the departure of co-founder and former managing director Tim Andrews. McKenzie has been gradually assuming the managing director duties for some time as Andrews’ external commitments to his charity, LoveBrum, have grown.
Now officially at the helm, McKenzie’s first task will be to oversee a total rebranding of the business, which is set to be revealed in mid-October, when it will be unveiled at a major event at the company’s Birmingham base.
“The whole look and feel of the company will be completely different. It’s all part of us taking the next step, moving to the next level becoming a more mature business,” McKenzie said. “We worked with a design agency looking at how we fit into the market and from it we developed a completely new identity, logo and website. It’s exciting.”
The rebrand will be launched at a “thought leadership” event for the retail industry that will be attended by major names in the retail world including Westfield, McDonalds, Superdry and Ted Baker, with a keynote speech from John Lewis managing director Andy Street. The Lord Mayor of Birmingham is also due to attend.
“This has been four months in the planning and we’re expecting around 80 people from 25 high profile retailers. It’s a huge open day for existing and prospective retail clients and the idea is that they can share experience and hear from the biggest names about the challenges in their industry and the impact of Brexit.”
The rebrand coincides with Hollywood Monster’s plan to make “three or four” high-profile appointments to the business as part of its continued growth strategy and a planned move into the textile-printing arena.
McKenzie was understandably limited on details but said the new recruits were “all big hitters and well-known names that will be coming on board over the next three or four months”.
“We want to bring on board route-to-market knowledge with the big retailers and supermarkets and specialist textile knowledge because we want to move in that direction. We have identified three or four people in the industry who are real leaders in their fields and we have been talking to them for some time,” he explained.
McKenzie added: “We’ve put ourselves on the map a bit more in the last 18 months and we are a bit more attractive to people so they have come to talk to us in many cases.
“This is all with a view to our accelerated growth plan of hitting £10m in a relatively short time and then being ready for acquisition. We have a specific plan and timeline in place.”
Planning for the rebrand, the launch event and preparations for the company’s new recruits as well as a restructuring of the business has meant that the opening of a new London sales office has been delayed from October to the end of the year, McKenzie said.
“We’ve changed our whole brief-to-order process so we have also restructured the team around that and we’ve invested heavily in quality control. The impact it’s having in lean manufacturing and waste reduction is massive," he said.
"Any company can grow sales but the smart ones are the ones that do that and create efficiencies through the company at the same time. That’s a double win.”
