Appliances Direct: evolving a value-led brand to carve out its space in a competitive market
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“The brand has never been as clear as it is now. It’s finally joined up and is truly representative of the Appliances Direct brand. And we have a talented creative team who are guardians of the brand.”
The brief
Future-proofing the business
The Appliances Direct brand had never really been overhauled - only tweaked - since Buy It Direct bought the brand in 2008. After a period of growth, CEO, Nick, wanted to strengthen the brand’s proposition. He planned to build on trust and recognition by shifting from being purely price-led to value-led, without losing their existing core proposition of offering the best prices.
Appliances Direct before the rebrand
The challenge
Moving past the discount trap
Appliances Direct were one of the original ‘value’ brands, but in a crowded market driven by continuous cost of living challenges, the company needed to solidify their brand by turning their existing values and identity into a clear, coherent proposition that everyone, internally and externally, understands.
They wanted to stop relying on heavy ad spend. That meant focusing on driving repeat business and customer loyalty, instead of constantly paying for ad clicks to win one-off sales.
Buy It Direct have a strong in-house creative team across design, copy and photography, but they were focused on the day to day ‘money-making’ work. The business relied on outsourcing brand work, which was often difficult to embed into internal teams who weren’t involved in the process.
With a strong focus on brand and a longer-term vision, I was brought in to embed into the team as a Head of Brand to drive the brand development from the inside.
I supported them to:
Understand their customers and define targeted messaging around them
Turn their existing proposition into a distinct brand identity
Shape and guide the visual creative direction alongside the in-house team
Standardise the tone of voice so every team can apply the brand easily
Switch from reactive deal-pushing to a campaign-led approach
Thread the brand throughout the customer journey to build trust and loyalty
Defining the proposition
Owning the savvy digital-first family
Having begun exploration of the Appliances Direct brand with an agency, the business made the decision to bring the work in-house.
We started by making the agency work practical. That looked like taking the initial concepts and distilling them into a commercial proposition that works for the business’s long-term strategy and the internal teams.
Clearly defining the brand’s customers was a crucial early step. We moved from ‘we cater to everybody’, to being more specific about who Appliances Direct are for and how this manifests in different places: across product ranges, how products are communicated, on different marketing channels, how to use email segmentation, and more.
We identified that instead of fighting John Lewis and AO for the premium service crowd, Appliances Direct should lean into the digital-first savvy families. The no-nonsense customer who prioritises great upfront prices alongside services they can trust – because the most important thing to them is living their life with as little disruption as possible.
They’d always been the savvy, pragmatic alternative to the major market leaders – but now they have a brand that confidently reflects that positioning.
Messaging and tone of voice
Sharpening the message for their target audience
A key challenge was that messaging and copywriting had become fragmented over the years. So we standardised the brand’s messaging and tone of voice.
Working with the team of copywriters, we defined a clear tone of voice with guidelines for the wider team to easily write on-brand copy themselves.
Part of this work included setting up tailored AI tools to support in the writing of product copy.
Brand identity development
Moving from reactive creative to planned campaigns
Having previously never done any large-scale brand work, we set out to define the brand's creative direction in-house. I led the development of the visual identity alongside the creative team, ensuring they work for both big campaigns, and everyday deals.
When it came to briefing in creative work, the business had always been fairly reactive, setting briefs on a deal-by-deal basis and marketing every category individually. Not only had this been incredibly inefficient, it also led to the Appliances Direct visual identity becoming disjointed and inconsistent – difficult to navigate for customers and impacting the reputation of the brand.
As part of our work defining the new identity, we moved to planned, cohesive campaigns that are easier to navigate for customers – and far easier for the teams to plan in advance.
The brand has a core style for non-promotional periods, using product and the core brand colours of red and navy. For campaigns which run to promote deals and sales, the brand has flexibility to reflect more aggressive deals and value, while maintaining cohesive, brand-led visuals. We ensured that energy would be focused on better creative, finding places to streamline and speed up the creation of time-sensitive promotions.
The approach we took ultimately led the team to producing more creative work (which customers love), with more time and less urgency imposed on them when coming up with concepts.
Across the customer experience
Threading the brand through the customer journey
The brand work didn’t stop at defining and developing a new identity. With the strategy and messaging in place, I worked with the wider teams to embed it across everything, from the emails customers get when making a purchase, to re-engagement campaigns, and how services are communicated – and what happens when customers book services.
We simplified the customer journey so buying wasn't overwhelming and ensured messaging around the service proposition was clearly and consistently communicated at every step.
The outcome of the brand work
A brand that works creatively and operationally
The Appliances Direct brand is now embedded across the business. Having worked directly with all teams to ensure the new strategy, messaging and visuals are threaded through every service touchpoint, campaign creation, and the customer journey, the business now has a brand that’s working both creatively and operationally. We ran sessions with the key teams to understand how to use the new proposition, messaging and values so they’re able to make decisions in-line with the brand.
Appliances Direct now have:
Transformed supplier relationships: Built real credibility in the market, earning greater trust from suppliers and unlocking more trade support and campaign funding
A strong brand that still delivers on price: Boosted brand recognition so they can keep offering great deals while building a reputable, trusted presence
A clear, working way of doing things: Left the business with simple processes, empowered teams, and a cohesive customer experience that drives repeat loyalty
Saving time and budget internally: Set up custom AI tools and templates so non-creative teams could easily write on-brand copy themselves – saving serious time and agency costs
“Fliss quickly became an invaluable member of the team. I was so impressed by the clarity and direction she brought to everything, from understanding our customer profiles, to defining our tone of voice and creative guidelines. Her thoughtful approach not only shaped our brand identity but also taught me a lot along the way.”