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During 2007’s Tartan Week,The Sun ran a front page featuring everyone’s favourite Scot punk rocker (with flowers in her hair) Sandi Thom clutching a rather dashing blue tartan acoustic. The brand of the guitar in question? Freshman, a name that is fast becoming a staple of many retailers up and down the UK that has built up its image quickly and really quite brilliantly.

Taking a leaf out of the ‘How To Get Famous Quickly’ approach to breaking a relatively new name, putting instruments in the hands of the great and the good (especially those prone to having their pictures taken by national press) has worked wonders raising awareness in Freshman.

“We’ve had five front pages in The Sun in the past nine months, predominantly to do with Sandi Thom,” says Kelly. “I designed a Tartan guitar that was used on the catwalk in New York that Sean Connery signed and was auctioned off for charity. We also did a sponsorship in conjunction with The Sun for a band to win a record deal. What we’ve done is make brand awareness number one. It’s about supporting the industry and promoting musical instruments. As an industry we can be quite insular; but really we need to get out to Joe Public who might consider picking up a guitar, because that’s who we want to educate.”

Sandi Thom is far from the only famous face to have taken a liking to the fiercely proud Scottish brand. Fellow countrymen such as up and coming Dundonians The Law and musical Middle Earther Billy Boyd sit alongside the likes of Roy Harper and, in a wonderful twist, all-powerful martial artist Steven Segal have all helped make Freshman a name to own, and most certainly to stock. And with the quality of instruments on display, it is easy to see why. A positive approach to the press, and working hard on gaining the brand a place in the national consciousness whilst retaining high quality, original instruments has demonstrated that a new brand can make its mark effectively.

“Brand awareness has really kicked off for us this year,” says Kelly. “There’s been a lot of publicity. Freshman as a brand is only four and a half years old, and it’s certainly come a long way, but this is not about box shifting. It’s all about quality, I’ve said that from the very first interview. We and our dealers are very happy with the product. Retail makes money on the product and doesn’t have to discount, and it sells because both the quality and value for money is there.”

A keen awareness of industry issues and a policy of only supplying real, bricks and morter music retailers has cast Freshman a solid reputation as a company that wants the industry to pick up from the malaise many are currently suffering from. “People make money on our instruments,” asserts Kelly.

“We’re selective with who we deal with. There are far too many companies that you can buy their product everywhere. We supply only music retailers, and that has added to the growth of Freshman guitars. The key brands out there are getting discounted heavily, and we don’t see that with Freshman guitars. The market has been good, it’s been a decent year for us; it’s slowly slowly, but we make sure that every step we take, we never allow the quality to suffer.
The recent introduction of a line of jazz guitars in the form of the FJ1 and FJ2 comes from directly listening to what it is customers and retailers are saying.

“I listen a lot to what customers are asking for and what they suggest we should do,” continues Kelly. “A lot of the products this year have come from listening to market trends and reacting to them, and not what we think will work the best. The jazzers had been suggested by a number of key accounts, that we do something quality to the same standard as the acoustics and the reaction has been great.

“I’m very happy with the way it’s grown. I don’t think anyone is breaking any records out there at the moment, but as a young company, we are growing slowly and steadily. We now want to stick with what we’ve done; we and gauge our success on what sells. We’ve worked hard on the publicity, and we’ll keep working on the brand and keeping the quality high.”