Trade merchants, Grafton GB wanted to carry out a significant business and architectural brand review of their large portfolio of ‘Base’ businesses. Each ‘Base’ offers a different merchant service, Grafton wanted a strategy to simplify these services, making them more familiar in their shoppers’ eyes.

Our key brand strategy recommendation was to consolidate and simplify Grafton’s trade merchanting offering from 10 brands into four; Buildbase, Plumbase, Hirebase and Electricbase.

With the new strategy in place, we devised a brand design to symbolise a recognisable family and make it easier for their shoppers to navigate across their business. There were several design elements that helped unify the brands. Two key elements were the colour red and a ‘cornerstone’ device. This device sits with each logo and acts as a graphic asset across all communications.

We rolled out the new brand design across the business, internally and externally. With every piece of communication getting the new design treatment. This meant that everything from tactical campaigns, POS, direct mail, van livery to branch signage was brought in line.