Yorkshire Water - Building a New Brand Purpose and Positioning
In 2019 Yorkshire Water defined a bold ambition for the future of their business, seeing them moving from a utility and service provider to an anchor institution, integral to the region. Our challenge was to understand how they could capture that idea and make it relevant to customers and colleagues through a new purpose, brand and values - and a new brand identity.
We designed a fully co-creative process to develop the brand purpose, vision and values with customers and colleagues. To support an ambitious launch we created toolkits, events, films and communication assets to launch and embed the purpose, vision and values. We were also briefed to develop a new brand identity, refreshing every aspect of the brand other than their logo.
A new purpose and values for Yorkshire Water and positioning for the brand (currently being created into an identity and brand strategy - watch this space!)
The next phase in Yorkshire Water’s journey was to take the foundation of their brand purpose and translate it to a modern, dynamic and ownable brand identity that truly embodied their ambition, “We put people at the heart of everything we do”.
We worked with Yorkshire Water to develop three brand platforms, using three distinct brand archetypes as our jumping-off point. We then set about exploring the visual and verbal identity that captured the spirit of the organisation. With a wide-ranging brand with a diversity of applications, from livery to bills, brand ads to reservoir signage, the brand had to balance flexibility and consistency.
