Tarmac Creating a new positioning for an iconic brand

Tarmac is the UK's leading sustainable building materials and construction solutions business. The company is proud to manufacture Blue Circle Cement products – one of the building industry’s most iconic brands with a history that stretches back more than 100 years.

With our established trade & construction expertise, Tarmac appointed WAA Chosen to help identify any low engagement within specific audience groups to strengthen the overall brand awareness of Blue Circle.

Research was undertaken to measure end-users’ awareness and perceptions of Blue Circle brands vs competitors – the results of which helped shape a new strategy aimed at targeting the under 34s where brand awareness was lowest.

Our insight showed that the building industry - particularly younger builders - had a great sense of family and community. This theme perfectly fitted within Blue Circle’s wider family-based brand values of quality, reliability and trust.

WAA Chosen created a new brand positioning - ‘One of the Family’ – which not only reflected the Blue Circle’s brand personality but also the tone, language and values of this audience.

At the heart of this creative concept, the Blue Circle device took the place of the letter O in ‘ONE’. We then developed family-themed product characterisations.

The ‘master personalities’ attributed to each of the products were simple one-word descriptions based on a mix of the particular product features and the benefits to the end-user. For example, ‘The Reliable One’ (Mastercrete Cement), ‘The Bright One’ (Snowcrete White Cement) and ‘The Dependable One’ (General Purpose Cement). Using these personalities to describe Tarmac’s own family of products gave us the opportunity to build upon the similarities between end-users and products.

Reaching an audience of more than a million, the campaign successfully cemented the brand as an ambassador for family values, creating content that engaged and converted key audiences in a tough market.

The campaign was awarded Best Brand Positioning Campaign at the Construction Marketing Awards and Best Trade Campaign at The Drum Roses Awards.