A Strategic and Safe Pair of Hands:
Discover Pitreavie & Scarecrow on a Voyage from Family-Owned Business to Global Acquisition
PITREAVIE PACKAGING
When Pitreavie Packaging needed a trusted marketing partner, they weren’t looking for big promises or flashy campaigns. They wanted experienced people who could keep the wheels turning, ask the right questions, and perform the work of a marketing team in the absence of one. They chose Scarecrow Digital. Over the next two years, that partnership helped reshape their marketing, strengthen dual brand presence and support Pitreavie through its multi-million acquisition by Macfarlane Packaging.
by Julia Redshaw
CASE STUDY
A BUSINESS ALREADY GOING PLACES
Having built a strong reputation in Scotland’s corrugated packaging sector, the company had established itself as a trusted supplier to businesses across a range of industries.
Alongside this success sat Sorbafreeze, Pitreavie’s specialist chilled packaging subsidiary. Supplying gel packs and temperature-controlled solutions capable of keeping products cold for up to 48 hours, the business was well positioned to meet the growing demand for chilled delivery services.
Naturally, that demand accelerated dramatically during Covid. In just 12 months, Sorbafreeze’s turnover grew from £800,000 to £2.1 million as businesses and consumers increasingly relied on chilled delivery solutions.
Success however brought a new challenge, not knowing whether the boom would continue post pandemic. The next phase wasn’t about chasing growth at any cost but understanding whether the market had changed for good and how we positioned the business for what came next.
“What we needed wasn’t a complete marketing overhaul, but a dependable, safe pair of hands.”
Following a recommendation from a departing marketing manager, Pitreavie approached Scarecrow to take ownership of a broad mix of activity, from paid advertising and email marketing to social media and website management.
“Our role was simple on paper, keep things moving, but better”
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK
Like many growing businesses, Pitreavie had marketing activity spread across several channels. Paid advertising was costing a lot and one question kept coming up in our conversations, was the marketing working as hard as it could be?
“All we really wanted was to know our spend was working for us”
Rather than assuming everything was fine and plodding on with what the client was already doing, we started digging deeper. We worked closely with the team to understand not just where enquiries were coming from, but which ones became customers, which sectors offered the greatest opportunity and where investment could actually make a commercial difference.
That process led to some honest conversations.
We tested new approaches, challenged a few long-held assumptions and then recommended scaling back paid advertising in favour of a stronger organic strategy.
“The choice to end the paid ads wasn’t the obvious recommendation and certainly not one that benefitted us in the short term, but it was the right one for the client, and that’s what we’re all about”
BUILDING WELL AND BUILDING TO LAST
During extensive onboarding and continued research, we found that search demand already existed for many of the products and services offered by both Pitreavie and Sorbafreeze, but the website wasn’t doing enough to capture it. We reworked the site’s content around the key terms potential customers were already searching for, improved the structure of pages, and introduced an SEO strategy designed to generate high quality enquiries. Within a couple of months, organic enquiries had reached the same levels previously achieved through paid advertising, saving Pitreavie upwards of £25,000 per year. Just as importantly however, the quality of the enquiries themselves had improved.
We also helped Pitreavie speak directly to the industries they wanted to work with. One of their target sectors was chilled packaging for food, however the net was cast widely, with lots of potential customers but not a focused enough lens to resonate with them. Instead, dedicated campaigns were developed for sectors including butchers, fishmongers, cheesemongers and more, each with tailored messaging, landing pages, email campaigns and supporting content designed around the unique challenges each business faced.
“It was a simple shift in thinking but one that resulted in more relevant conversations with the right customers, including globally recognised brands like Harrods.”
Alongside this we introduced commercial reporting that connected marketing activity with wider business outcomes. Instead of simply measuring clicks or impressions, monthly reports tracked enquiries, new customers, cross-sales and connected revenue, giving the leadership team clear, board-ready insight into what was working and where attention was needed next.
SUPPORTING THE NEXT CHAPTER
18 months into our partnership, Pitreavie entered a new chapter of its story.
The business was acquired by Macfarlane Packaging in a strategic £17 million deal, strengthening the group’s manufacturing presence in Scotland while adding an established packaging business to its portfolio.
Scarecrow remained alongside the business for a further nine months, helping maintain continuity throughout the transition and supporting both Pitreavie and the incoming parent company.
“It’s a chapter we’re particularly proud of. Not because we can claim responsibility for the acquisition, that success belonged to a business built over many years, but because we helped provide stability during one of the most significant moments in Pitreavie’s history.”
THE RIGHT PARTNER AT THE RIGHT TIME
The best client relationships aren’t built on saying yes to everything.
Sometimes that means recommending a new direction, sometimes it means challenging the status quo, sometimes it means admitting that a campaign isn’t delivering what it should and finding a better way forward.
For over two years Scarecrow became an extension of the Pitreavie team, supporting day-to-day marketing, helping Sorbafreeze reach new audiences and providing the steady, commercially focused advice that growing businesses need.
And that’s exactly how we like it.
READY TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS?
If you’re looking for an agency that asks the right questions, challenges assumptions and gives honest advice, we’d love to hear your story.
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94 Hope St, Glasgow G2 6PH