Nov 19 2009

The Team creates new brand identity for Affinity Sutton

 

Creative communications consultancy The Team has created a brand identity for newly-merged affordable housing provider Affinity Sutton. The organisation was formed from the merger of William Sutton, Broomleigh and Downland housing associations and launches its new identity this week.

The Team was tasked with designing a brand that would communicate the diversity of Affinity Sutton’s work as well as appeal to a diverse range of audiences – from MPs and regulators to staff and residents, including hard-to-reach groups. Central to the new identity is the Affinity Sutton sphere – which is also the organisation’s logo – a unique graphic made up of soft-tone navy blue, light blue, yellow and green colours that will provide a consistent identity for the entire group.

With more than 54,000 homes, Affinity Sutton is one of the biggest providers of affordable housing in England, working with 120 local authorities from Plymouth to Newcastle. Its one-hundred-year history is complex with mergers, restructures, name changes, and multiple brands. The Team therefore had a lot to consider in creating a unified brand to cement the organisation’s standing as a business for social purpose and one of the largest independent providers of affordable housing in the UK.

Each of the former brands had their own identities and cultures, therefore The Team had to overcome existing emotional attachments and combine all of their individual strengths into a single solution. It unravelled the organisation’s complex brand architecture and merged the four sub-brands into a single Affinity Sutton identity. The Team then created a striking visual identity to demonstrate the organisation’s new brand personality of being warm, genuine, fresh and experienced.

To celebrate the launch of its new identity, Affinity Sutton has pledged to plough more than £2m each year into its neighbourhoods, with the aim to raise a further £10m in the next three years from external sources.

Viv Wilcock, managing director at The Team, said: “We wanted to create a striking visual identity that would demonstrate Affinity Sutton’s values. The challenge was to overcome existing emotional attachments to each of the former brands’ identities and cultures, instead combining their strengths into a single, unified whole.”

Keith Exford, chief executive of Affinity Sutton, said: “We’re delighted with the new identity The Team has designed for us, which communicates the diversity of our organisation and the fact that we exist to help people put down roots.

“In these tough times we believe there has never been a better time to invest in our communities and by operating as one business instead of four we will be able to improve services and maximise opportunities for our residents. Our community investment programme is just one way that we are supporting our communities locally and creating opportunities to help them thrive.”