Interior Surfaces

Rebranding led to a more professional image, doubled turnover and a clearer understanding of the business's market potential

Background

Sheffield-based Interior Surfaces manufactures a varied range of interior work surfaces. A retail outlet serves homeowners, but a larger proportion of the business is focused on top-end trade customers: design and build contractors and architect-led projects.

In March 2006, Interior Surfaces wanted to update its image following a turbulent few years. The company was launched in 1992 as Tailored Tops. In October 2000, Managing Director (now chairman) Arthur Mackenzie bought out his former partner and a year later renamed the business Interior Surfaces. Then, in November 2006, the company moved premises.

Following this upheaval, sales began to grow, but the new management team believed the business could be doing better.

Problem

‘We had a decision to make,’ says Sales and Marketing Manager Zoe Dickinson explains. ‘We could remain small, just ticking over, or we could try to be a real player. We chose the second but weren't sure how best to achieve it.’

Dickinson received a flyer about Designing Demand. Like many sales and marketing executives working in smaller businesses, she says, she was unclear about the role design and branding could play.

‘Our only experience of design was putting together our company brochure,’ she explains. The original Interior Surfaces identity had been developed by a commercial artist. ‘We'd spent what felt like a small fortune on printing new materials, but it wasn't working. The experience left a sour taste. We felt if that's design then we don't want to play.’

Design Associate Ellis Pitt was assigned to work with Interior Surfaces after it joined the Generate service. His first step was to run an introductory session with the management team to analyse the business.

‘It was clear that although they had a strong track record for good workmanship and great products, services and people, the image Interior Surfaces presented through its corporate identity and marketing materials fell short of this,’ says Pitt.

The company was ambitious. It wanted to double its 2005-06 turnover of £1.2m within five years. That meant attracting more business from leading, blue chip design-to-build contractors. But to achieve that the business needed these higher calibre clients to take it more seriously.

‘The goal was to build a stronger brand through better design and use this to create an added value proposition, repositioning the business as more than just a supplier, as it had clear strengths in terms of quality and problem-solving,’ Pitt adds.

He worked closely with the management team to analyse its customer base and target market, identifying the highest value clients and the less profitable ones.

Pitt developed a design brief crystallising the business's strengths, including its focus on quality and problem-solving, and its ambition to build sales with higher calibre clients. This was then used to brief the design company appointed to create the new identity.

Three design companies were invited to present credentials. ‘It was apparent all could do the job,’ says Dickinson. ‘But we felt only one took our business seriously and had taken the time to understand us. They didn't talk at us, which was important. And as a result they were people we felt we could work with.’

The management team selected Huddersfield-based designers The Engine Room, impressed by their track record, enthusiasm and collaborative style. After spending time in the factory and with customers and clients to understand the work surfaces business more clearly, the designers developed three possible design solutions.

‘Constant and open dialogue was essential to get the best out of this process, although we had such confidence in the (design) team we would have been happy to use any of the three ideas they came up with,’ Dickinson adds. ‘Ultimately, it came down to personal preference and luckily we all chose the same one straight away.’

The new corporate identity was launched in January 2007. It comprises the company name in two shades of green beside the initials i and s and strap line, 'Hardwearing surfaces for hardworking people'. This is used across all print materials and promotional literature, and a redesigned website.

Impact

The re-branding was received positively by many customers including designers and architects - two groups to which the company was especially keen to present itself as a problem solver. Since then, Interior Surfaces has continued to work with The Engine Room and now has plans for a new retail website. In the year ending July 2008, the company's turnover hit £2.4m.

Dickinson believes the Designing Demand process ‘transformed’ Interior Surface's business, although at first the management team found it a challenge.

‘We were questioned about turnover, business strategy, clients, products - topics we'd never been asked about when talking to designers about previous brochures. And we were initially quite surprised by the bluntness of the recommendations,’ she says.

‘But it’s now clear that what we had previously thought was investing in design was actually expenditure on print. Designing Demand not only helped us re-brand, it helped the management team to focus more closely on developing areas of business that are most profitable and provide greatest potential for future growth.’

Interior Surfaces' Chairman Arthur Mackenzie readily endorses this. ‘When I first met the Design Associate I expected questions about colours and fonts. Instead they asked me about financial and business-related matters. The project has totally transformed my view of marketing and branding.’

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