Pivoting through the Pandemic

Pic: Matt Waterhouse and Joe Bradford

Fiasco, the road case company whose launch in the USA was featured in CX Magazine, has recently grabbed headlines across New Zealand for successfully pivoting in response to the pandemic.

The Waikato-based firm have designed and manufactured two new products under two new brand names. Screen Serve portable room dividers or screens are for use wherever people might come into close proximity to each other, and Work from Home Desks, as the name suggests, are flat pack ergonomically designed desks.

By the end of February, Fiasco was feeling the impact of the downturn in the events industry and they began work on products that would target essential services and keep their business alive until the events industry rebounded. Two new websites were launched at the end of March and a Google Ads and social media onslaught began, leaning heavily on their reputation for building products that can take years of abuse on the road.

It wasn’t all plain sailing. Health and safety were major factors in any business decisions, and staff well-being at the core of their production facility. Supply was tricky at times and navigating the essential service declaration paperwork was a learning curve.

As major media outlets looked for feelgood stories during the lockdown, Fiasco’s marketing campaign caught the eye of journalists. The company’s story and products subsequently featured in the New Zealand Herald, Stuff and on TVNZ Breakfast. Brett Wallace, Sales Manager recalls, “We just had our heads down working, having ruled out any other marketing as too costly, when we started to get phone calls. It was all organic.”

Fiasco have even been in the enviable position of hiring, “To begin with we went to two local Christian Camps who had closed during lockdown and hired their staff, and we’ve taken on more staff since then to allow us to concentrate on what interest there is in road cases.”

With existing connections to the medical sector, there has been some road case work in New Zealand but road cases have all but dried up in the USA where they had focused predominantly on the entertainment industry, “The desks are gaining traction over there but setting up production remotely has been a challenging experience. We are used to flying over and being very hands on and fastidious, and we have had to adapt to using Zoom.”

They remain fully committed to their US business, “We are not out of the woods by any stretch, but we haven’t had to reduce our operation as yet and we are watching closely to see when things will re-open over there.”