Like a proud parent, we’re celebrating the first year of our Housing Units rebrand. In October 2017 we sent the new brand out into the world to spread its wings and grow into what it is today. Here’s a little breakdown of the thinking behind it all.
The best brands are living and breathing entities
Brands should have a mind of their own and a personality that draws people in to engage with them. This couldn’t be more relevant in the demanding retail marketplace, especially for driving footfall to the physical store as well as to the online space. Therefore our approach to the rebrand needed to have the heart and soul of the business ingrained in it.
We lived with the brand to really shape it
Regularly visiting the store was a pleasure and vital to understanding how the brand should speak to the world. Being there, talking to the staff, and seeing how people behaved in store helped us to devise the direction to move the story of the brand forward, celebrating everything that’s great about this multi department wonderland of shopping, eating and great people.
One year later we can see the branding, visual style, tone of voice and personality working hard in the real world, connecting with existing customers and drawing in new ones.
An established name has confidence
Confidence is engaging. Just like confident people, we’re drawn to brands that say and show who they are with conviction. For Housing Units this started with the shift to the abbreviated HU name and the line “The home department store”.
Successful brand awareness lives in consistency
In devising the new direction for Housing Units, creating a consistent visual style and tone was key. We wanted to create a brand that people could confidently say “Oh, yeah that’s HU”. Anchors such as the green colour, unique typeface and departments design all helped put a stake in the ground for making them a recognisable business.
The brand lives beyond the store in homes, cars, on coffee tables and social media
A new brand needs to be celebrated and put into the places where people can celebrate it too. From traditional TV, radio and press to inspiration on instagram and the community on Facebook, the Housing Units brand lives confidently across multiple platforms. And it engages with people in the most relevant way depending on the audience’s expectations of each platform. There’s lots more exciting work coming from the brand too.
There’s a whole story around the great people who make Housing Units that we can’t wait to share.
Here’s a few words about the work we’ve done from Housing Units CEO, Nick Fox:
“We chose The Behaviours Agency as our creative agency not only because they came highly recommended with very credible retail endorsements, but they also had an impressive and immediate understanding of our brief. With their analytic approach and supporting creative, they were able to support our rebrand in a swift manor. The Behaviours Agency’s experience of brand strategy and development ensured our rebrand process uncovered, challenged and delivered key insights which helped inform a clear positioning of our business. 12 months into the project we are starting to see results both in store and online in an ever changing retail environment”