Merseyside brand marketing specialist Wild Thang has secured a top industry accolade and says it is targeting revenue growth of up to 30% for 2022. Tony McDonough reports

Fast-growing brand marketing specialist Wild Thang has been voted one of the top merchandise and corporate gift distributors in the UK.

And the Bootle-based business, which has just invested more than £2m in the transformation of its headquarters, is the only Liverpool city region firm to have received the ‘Distributor of the Year’ accolade from Sourcing City, a trade organisation that represents manufacturers in the sector.

It is Wild Thang’s second award in quick succession having won the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce International Award in November. Managing director and founder Andrew Dwerryhouse said: “We are absolutely ecstatic – we could not have had a better finish to 2021 and perfect start to 2022.”

Wild Thang manufactures and supplies a full range of branded marketing materials. Its blue-chip clients have included Sky Bet, Paddy Power, Wembley Stadium and Liverpool and Everton football clubs.

New manufacturing technology installed in the firm’s Derby Road headquarters as part of the £2m transformation which was delivered successfully despite the business facing the twin challenges of COVID and Brexit.

Andrew has previously told LBN he intends to double the company’s headcount over the next year or so as it looks to meet growing demand from clients both in the UK and overseas. It’s current headcount is more than 30 and his ambition is to grow this number to around 60. Recruitment is already under way.

He has also committed the company to a net zero carbon future. Speaking about its latest accolade, Andrew added: “Being voted by our supply chain who are the true industry peer experts is the ultimate accolade as a company.

“Whenever you get an industry accolade and acknowledgement like this, you really know you have the right world class team, products and service in place to deliver our mission to produce world class creative branded clothing, merchandise and print solutions, day in day out, for our amazing clients.”

Wild Thang saw a dip in orders at the height of the pandemic in 2020. During the first lockdown it pivoted towards making branded t-shirts to raise cash for NHS charities. Its recovery accelerated through 2021 and now Andrew says the aim is to increase turnover by 25% to 30% in 2022.

He added: “We certainly must be doing something right and our hard work is paying off. We have overcome the many challenges that have been thrown at us over the last few years due to our development, the pandemic and Brexit.

“Obviously we always celebrate our success as a team and company but sometimes our audience may only see the successes so we thought that this image is a great way of highlighting that it’s just the tip of the iceberg and there is always a whole host of challenges below the surface.

“While we are still navigating through challenges related to COVID we couldn’t be more excited about what the year ahead holds for us.”