Family firm reveals youthful ‘in-house’ marketing team

Company boss offers incentive scheme to daughters he’s tasked to manage his firm’s social media accounts during lockdown

The head of a family-owned business employing 45 people has recruited his four primary school daughters as the company’s new “in-house, our house” online marketing team during the Covid-19 shutdown.

Barry Shevlin is offering Alice (12), Aisling (11), Aoibhinn (9) and Anna (5) a series of performance-linked incentives including a trampoline, a second dog, and the enticing prospect of a trip to Disneyland, Florida.

The girls have been busy at their home in Ratoath coming up with imaginative ideas to maintain Barry's Global Home Improvements Facebook and Instagram profiles until the company can resume business.

As the likes mount up, the company will also donate agreed amounts to Our Hospital Heroes, a GoFundMe charity organised by Robbie and Claudine Keane, in conjunction with the Mater Foundation, to aid the fight against Covid-19.

Said dad Barry: “If this happened pre-Covid-19, I’d have said that handing over the marketing of a well-known company in business for 40 years like this would be absolute lunacy but we’re in different times now and this is a family business.”

The company, which specialises in custom-made windows and doors, was founded in 1980 by Barry’s father Tom, who has just turned 70. The Covid-19 closure resulted in the company’s existing marketing programme, including radio advertising, being put on hold.

“I mentioned at the dinner table that I was having problems figuring out Instagram and the children said we can put up posts for you if you pay us. And it grew from there. They set themselves up as a team and called it 4A Marketing.”

After home schooling in the morning the girls sit around the table with four company tablets for about 90 minutes each day coming up with potential social media content.

A popular posting involves the creation of four virtual quarantine houses, each with seven resident Irish and international celebrities, such as Johnny Sexton, Saoirse Ronan and Donald Trump. Followers are invited to choose their preferred house in which to sit out the pandemic.

A stratified bonus scheme, devised by dad Barry, ranges from €10 for one hundred likes per post, to a trampoline for 750 likes, a weekend away within Europe for 2,000 likes and a two-week holiday anywhere in the world in 2022 for 5,000 likes.

However, in a gesture to Covid-19 patients, the girls say they are willing to forego the overseas trip and settle for a new dog or cat if Dad increases the charity contribution. They have each donated €10 pocket money to kick-start the fundraising.

Said Alice, who is in 6th class: “We negotiated a reward system with Dad on condition that our posts are appropriate, responsible and have a connection to the company. It’s great fun coming up with new ideas, but they can’t all be about new dances, cats and bunnies.”

Said Barry: “It’s really exciting for the girls to be given this level of responsibility. They’re learning a lot. And it’s a really nice way for the company to keep in touch with our customers during the shutdown.”