The price comparison space, on the surface, appears to be a cluttered vertical with the likes of Go Compare, Compare the Market and Confused.com offering services.

However, for Business Growth Fund (BGF) portfolio company Broadbandchoices.co.uk, the home internet space is an area which it believes is not being suitably addressed.

Back in October 2012, the business netted £10 million from the BGF to build its brand and promote international expansion.

As well as discussing how acquisitions, product development and capital expenditure were factoring into business development, a roundtable hosted by GrowthBusiness offered the chance to find out how Broadbandchoices.co.uk’s national advertising campaign had gone.

Michael Phillips, managing director of Broadbandchoices.co.uk, says, ‘We decided that TV advertising was a big opportunity for the business as, having done a lot of focus groups and research, we realised that there is a big market for what we do but no recognised brand for our category.’

Using the funds it had secured from the BGF, the business decided to go big with its advertising.

Through research conducted prior to the funding, the company developed a dual strategy: one showing how it could use existing cash resources, and one for an accelerated plan using investment.

‘We were mindful that we were wanted to raise money to do it quicker but we wanted to make sure, equally, that if we wanted to do it ourselves we could,’ Phillips explains.

Company profiles from our exclusive roundtable:

• Cennox
• GCI Com
• Springfield Healthcare Group

Marketing forms an important part of Broadbandchoices.co.uk’s future and, having historically outsourced it, is now something being done increasingly in-house.

‘We’ve just hired the head of marketing from Churchill [car insurance], which is a cracking hire for us as it is someone coming from an acquisition driven environment and a setting which has high quality marketing but is also very numbers driven,’ Philips adds.

The advertising campaign run by the business was all about building up its brand presence and making sure it is the destination of choice for consumers. Phillips is confident that the investment has been worth it.

This feature is part of a larger package looking at the Business Growth Fund’s active portfolio. See links above for more content.