The LED lighting industry is a lucrative one. There has been a huge surge inpeople switching over to LEDs for their environmental benefits, and THORN wanted to take advantage – but the challenge was to differentiate, as other retailers had the same idea. By focusing on branding rather than the product, the THORNeco range was able to make wholesale retailers sit up and pay attention. Turning away from the usual functional names found in the trade market, a bold design strategy created products with human personality. In just three months, the playful branding delivered a 38:1 return on investment and average monthly sales are up 301%. Before the rebrand, THORN was sold in the UK and France – now they have 17 export markets. THORN has been able to build a database of potential customers, with 21% of visitors to the website signing up for their newsletter (against a benchmark of 9%) and five new jobs have been created off the back of the success.