How an insight-driven approach reinforced Willmott Dixon as one of the UK’s most successful business groups.

How to unify a broad and complex business group into a dynamic, single entity.

Frame
Create
Deliver

Willmott Dixon is one of the UK’s largest construction companies and since its establishment in 1852 has diversified its business units across a wide range of development, construction and interiors disciplines. One consequence of this growth and success was the emergence of a plethora of sub-brands, all competing with each other for share of voice and contributing to deliver an unnecessarily confusing series of messages to existing and potential customers. The time had come to refocus behind a clear, consistent, single brand identity to cement the brand as a leading player in the UK market.

The first stage was a detailed brand audit, evaluating the effectiveness of the current brand and the effectiveness of the sub-brands that had organically grown across the business. The solution was to develop a distinctive, single brand with consistent, strong messages that could be easily implemented across all sub-brands ensuring consistency of communication at every stage of the employee and customer experience. After Board approval it was imperative to roll-out the new identity nationally as quickly as possible to embed the changes across the organisation.

The Bonfire solution was to develop a distinctive, single brand with consistent, strong messages that could be easily implemented across all sub-brands ensuring consistency of communication at every stage of the employee and customer experience. Once the Board was convinced it was imperative to roll out the new identity nationally as quickly as possible to embed the changes across the organisation.

Brand awareness was raised in the industry and staff were fully engaged in the rollout and encouraged to adopt it as quickly as possible, thanks to the centralised ordering service Bonfire established for all corporate stationery and branded materials. Each of the UK offices received a full new brand guidelines document which included approved templates for advertising and promotional materials. In the space of a very short, three-week timescale, guidelines were produced, and the company’s annual report distributed. 2 years of brand guardianship for Willmott Dixon further ensured consistency after roll-out.

Each of the UK offices received a full new brand guidelines document which included approved templates for advertising and promotional materials. In the space of a very short, three-week timescale, guidelines were produced and the company’s annual report distributed.

Willmott Dixon entrusted the new brand’s guardianship to Bonfire for the following two years.